Do you know someone who is just unbearable to be around? Be it your boss, co-worker, relative, or aunt Susan at a dinner table, spending your time in the company of toxic people may make you feel exhausted and frustrated. Especially when you don’t have the luxury of being away from them for some time. But don’t worry; there are many things you can do to stay immune from toxic people and their negative energy. So keep on reading to learn how to deal with toxic people by using simple yet efficient strategies.
How to Deal With Toxic People: 5 Strategies
1. Maintain an Emotional Distance
Maybe they are trying to engage you in a conversation you don’t want to be a part of. Or perhaps they want you to help them stir up some drama because they have nothing else to entertain themselves with.
Regardless of what they are attempting to do, try to maintain an emotional distance from them. Instead, keep ignoring them and their attempts to pull you into something you don’t want to participate in.
2. Don’t Be Afraid to Seem Rude While Setting Boundaries
Oftentimes, toxic people use your good manners to their advantage by making you listen to their endless complaints. Or making you feel obliged to do things for them. In other words, they exploit your good character, which is something you must not let them do. Because the more you compromise in this regard, the greedier they will become.
So the best thing you can do is to speak your mind when you don’t like their behavior or attitude toward you. Even if that will make you rude in someone else’s eyes. After all, you are not obligated to do anyone a favor or be their personal therapist, especially the one who is not even getting paid for it.
In short, setting your boundaries does not make you rude in the slightest. It simply means you don’t let anyone walk over you, which is something toxic people need to understand.
3. Don’t Try to Fight Them
Fighting or arguing with toxic people is like talking to a wall; they won’t hear anything you have to say. After all, they never blame themselves for anything, even when it’s clearly their own fault. Instead, they think it’s always someone else who made a mistake or caused the problem.
So save yourself from wasting your energy on them. They will give you only a headache and make you feel more frustrated. Instead, tell them that your time is too precious to spend it on them and try to get away from them as far as possible.
4. Remember that You Did Not Do Anything Wrong
Toxic people are master manipulators and know how to make you doubt yourself or your actions. That’s why it’s very easy for them to make you feel like you are at fault while they are completely innocent.
They try to do this by getting too personal with you, attacking all your weakest spots, twisting their words, or accusing you of horrible things. Sometimes all of these combined. And they can be so good at this that at some point, you may start to believe that you are the one at fault.
So whenever they start to act this way, remind yourself that they are trying to manipulate you and make you feel guilty for something that’s not your fault at all. Then reinforce your boundaries and try to rid yourself of all the negative emotions they gave you.
5. Be Unavailable
Toxic people are excellent at telling who they can play their mind games with. So if you are the type of person who’s very helpful, kind, and compassionate, they will likely consider you as the perfect target.
Then they will approach you in an attempt to gain your compassion. And once they do, they will try to guilt-trip you into doing favors for them. And the more favors you do for them, the more of them they will expect you to do.
In this case, a simple thing you can do is to make yourself unavailable. For example, if they ask you to help them with a work project, tell them that you already have your share of work to take care of and don’t have time to help others.
Final Thoughts
The thing about life is that you meet all kinds of people in it, so crossing paths with toxic people is an unfortunate part of it. But luckily, you can make your interactions with them as stress-free as possible by following the tips mentioned above.
