Hi, I'm Dr Tracey Marks, a psychiatrist, and I make mental health education videos. When I started making videos on YouTube in 2018, one of my early videos was how to recognize a toxic relationship. That video was based on a blog post that I wrote in 2010.
I had no idea at the time that toxic people or relationships would be trending topics. At the time I made the video, I was focused on the person on the receiving end of these behaviors, and how they could recognize and deal with them. I didn't expect to get questions from people saying, "What if I'm the toxic one?
What do I do? " Since I've gotten that question a lot, I decided to answer it here. First, let me review the behaviors.
I'm just going to list them, but for descriptions of them, you can watch the original video that I'll link to this one. Here are the 10 red flags or signs of a toxic relationship. Number one, chronic anger, like blowups or moodiness.
Two, chronic sarcasm, which is a form of disguised anger. Three, disparaging humor. Things aren't funny, unless it insults someone.
Four, having a punitive mindset that people deserve the bad things that happen to them. Five, needing to control people. Six, excessive insecurity and needing constant reassurance.
Seven, being extremely opinionated and judgemental. Eight, manipulating you with guilt. Nine, predominant self-centeredness in a way that they take more than they give.
And number 10, needing to be on the offense with the worldview that people will stick it to you, unless you get yours first. That's a lot of negative stuff, but to be clear, these are not meant to be characteristics that define a narcissist. These are thoughts and behavior patterns that anyone can engage in.
It could be someone with a personality disorder, like narcissistic borderline or even obsessive compulsive personality disorder, and/or it could be someone who is depressed and bitter. What if you are the one that's doing these things? First off, if you recognize these things in yourself, and own them as causing problems in relationships, you've already made a huge step.
Change starts with insight, and some people will hear these things, and get defensive or justify them. For example, the person who's always mad about something may justify their anger as a normal response to being around idiots. So, you've already made progress if you're willing to accept these thoughts and behaviors as problems that start with you as opposed to externalizing blame onto other people or situations.
Next, you need to expand your self-awareness. You will need an independent person to help you see your blind spots. The independent person should be a professional, like a therapist.
A personality or relationship coach may work as well, depending on their skillset. What kind of therapy would you get? A psychodynamically oriented therapy will have a heavy focus on why you do and think these things.
What are the origins of the behavior? Psychodynamic psychotherapy seeks to make your unconscious motivations conscious, so that you can break the pattern, and think or behave differently the next time the situation arises. The therapist does this by asking you questions about your upbringing, and looking at things, like who made you feel supported and loved?
Who praised you? Who criticized you and how? Are any of your current relationship dynamics a reenactment of an earlier relationship?
This kind of therapy takes time to see change. We're talking weekly therapy for months, if not years. The older you are, the more work it takes to change these kinds of patterns.
One thing about this approach is you can spend too much time focused on why, and not as much time focused on changing the behavior. Some people call this getting stuck on blaming mother, for example, you may come to understand that you're quick to judge people negatively, because your father never validated you. Nothing you did was good enough.
Okay, got it. But the person you just publicly shamed, because they failed to do what you asked, doesn't care about how your father treated you. They just see you as being unnecessarily hurtful.
So you have to pivot from talking about the past, and move toward changing your reactions to people in the present. To do this, you need to be actively engaged with people in relationships, so that you're doing things in real time that you and your therapist can analyze. The relationships can be casual, romantic, or family.
With cognitive therapy, instead of exploring things, like why you find joy in insulting people, the focus is on the stories you tell yourself to justify your behavior. If you believe that you need to see other people lose to feel a win for yourself, the cognitive therapist would help break down that thought for a specific situation, and uncover the base thought that promotes that attitude. So let's say the base thought was that someone else's success means there won't be much good fortune left for you.
A scarcity mindset kind of thing. So someone getting a raise means that you probably won't get one too. Cognitive therapy would have you ask questions, like "What's the evidence that there's only one opportunity available?
" "What's the likelihood that you would've gotten a raise if the other person hadn't gotten one? " You would challenge your assumptions, and find a more reasonable way to think about the situation. Almost any negative behavior or motivation can be traced back to unhelpful, distorted thoughts that you're acting on.
Some other therapies for personality disorders are interpersonal therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, which is a type of cognitive behavior therapy, mentalization therapy, and schema therapy. If you have problematic personality traits that are worsened by depression or anxiety, seeking medication treatment for either of these conditions may improve how you relate to people. One person posed the question, "What if my therapist is not a good fit for me?
How do I break up with them? " My answer to that is to be upfront and say, "I want to move in a different direction with my therapy. I'd like to try a new therapist.
" If you're not good with expressing yourself, especially in a conflict situation, memorize that statement and just say it. Your therapist should be trained to handle this kind of directness. That's not to say that he or she is bulletproof, and won't be disappointed.
They may have hurt feelings, but they should also be able to handle your request professionally, and likely offer to have one more session with you to wrap up. They should not pass on to you any hurt feelings or resentment about your decision. Why?
Because part of the training of a therapist is to expect this to happen from time to time, and help patients process the termination. Take a look at this video for more of an explanation on the signs of a toxic relationship and ways to detox the relationship if you are on the receiving end, and this video on breaking the cycle of repeating the same negative relationship over and over. Thanks for watching.
See you next time.
