The Baby Boomers Guide to Toxic Relationships
Psychological articles that deal with this extremely deep and frequently explored subject tend to recommend a withdrawal from all toxic influences that touch upon our lives. Toxic behavior may be described in psychological articles as unsociable; unfriendly; negative; non-productive; non-beneficial – you get the general drift…
It would be a simple matter to cut off, as psychological articles recommend, from every single person who exhibits toxic attitudes. However, life does not work that way for those who are unfortunate enough to be saddled with toxic characteristics. To begin with, it is highly likely that many of those people are close friends or relations. Severing contact with them would be like cutting loose from the roots that hold your life together.
Psychological articles are full of exaggerated descriptions of toxic attitudes. Some of them describe having a good moan about day to day aggravations as ‘toxic’. Everyone has a gripe about the things that upset them or even just the things that are a pesky part of humdrum routine. Pointing out these things surely does not qualify a person to be ‘toxic’. Yet according to many psychological articles on the subject of toxicity and toxic people; it does! What then? Does one keep quiet about the injustices of life, worried that to speak about them might label one as ‘toxic?’
Toxic relationships are a two way street. Everyone knows the kind of people described in psychological articles as ‘toxic’ or being ‘prone to toxicity’. They are the harbingers of bad news; usually the bearers of bad fortune; the voices of doom, gloom and despondency; the permanent holders of the cup that is half empty instead of half full. But toxic people speak to non toxic people – they cannot have a conversation by themselves!
They are also part of life and part of the rich combinations that comprise the diversities of the human race. Psychological articles correctly point out that these people moan and groan and find fault with everything and everyone they come into contact with but what would we do without them? By comparison we are cheerful and sunny and enjoy life to the full but that is exactly the point: it is that comparison that throws an optimistic approach into pleasant relief and provides us with the comforting thought; “Thank heavens I am not THAT miserable!”
Toxic relationships exist for all of us, whether we like it or not. We necessarily must socialize with toxic people every day at home and at work but we need not necessarily emulate them or buy into their outlook. We can detach ourselves and watch such behavior from a safe distance without cutting off our noses along with our toxic friends and relations. Take a ringside seat instead and view toxic people as a friendly spectator…
