A very short post regarding interacting with toxic family members.
“It’s the most wonderful time of the year!”
You may have heard the above statement multiple times already since the month of November started. With holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years Eve coming up, the months of November and December are labeled to be a jolly season where families are reunited to eat food, party, and spread love to one another.
Unfortunately, the notion of a joyous holiday with family does match everyone’s reality. In fact, it just may be the opposite.
Sometimes, we may have one or multiple family members who are toxic for our mental health due to their behavior, choices, belief systems, and overall treatment towards us, and being within the same room as them during the holidays can prove to be anxiety producing.
Here, we will discuss exactly what a toxic family member is, signs the family member is toxic for you, and how to safely communicate with them during the holiday season.
What is a toxic family member:
A toxic family member is an individual within the family structure that negatively impacts our mental health, whether consciously or unconsciously, due to their behavior towards us, others, or themselves. The family member can cause us feelings of distress, anger, sadness, confusion, etc, instead of the positive feelings attributed to the word family such as happiness, support, and love.
Because everyone’s definition of toxicity varies, listed below are a few common signs of a toxic family member within a family system.
Signs of a toxic family member:
Because everyone’s definition of toxicity varies, listed below are a few common signs of a toxic family member within a family system.
Feeling uneasy after interacting with them. After almost every interaction with this family member, do you feel anxious? On guard? Disgusted? If so, that’s your bodys signal that they’re making you uneasy. Depending on what the situation may be or what your relationship with them is like, something about our interactions within this family member makes you incredibly uncomfortable, and is getting in the way of enjoying yourself fully.
Invalidating. Within family structures, It’s incredibly important to feel accepted, celebrated, loved, and validated. Thus, if you find a particular member, or multiple members are constantly making your race, gender, sexuality, identity, etc as a joke and invalidating your experiences as that identity, or constantly utilizes other methods to make you feel bad about yourself for their short-term benefit, they may be toxic for you.
Hostility. Hostile behavior exhibited by another family member towards you or others you love within the family structure can be extremely uncomfortable to witness and experience. Hostility may be expressed through physical aggressiveness, intimidation, degrading verbal usage, and/or passive aggressive behavior. If you feel you have to walk on egg shells around a family member unless you’ll be “punished” by aggressive arguments, silent treatments, gossip, etc, they may be toxic for you.
Consistently crossing your expressed boundaries. Anyone who continuously attempts to disregard your verbally stated boundaries does not respect your space, health, and feels a sense of entitlement towards interacting with you. As imagined, having your respectfully stated boundaries repetitively crossed in this manner is invaliding, disrespectful, and hurtful. Thus, if a family member is consistently crossing your verbally expressed boundaries, they’re toxic for you.
Controlling. If they attempt to control your sense of agency or voice, and uses different methods to have everything go their way, they may be toxic.
Physically, verbally, emotionally, and/or sexually abusive. Abusive behavior is never okay, especially from family, ESPECIALLY from an adult aged family member. If they have a habit of being abusive towards you or another member within the family, understand they are not only toxic, but they are also DANGEROUS to be around.
How to respond:
Dealing with toxic family members can be incredibly difficult to maneuver. Thus, listed below are a few options you may be able to take to keep the peace, while also making sure your boundaries are being respected.
Verbally express new boundaries: The first step which should be taken is to verbally express to the family member or members your new boundaries (unless the family member is a risk to your livelihood, which in this case stay as far away from them as possible). Boundaries can sound similar to “I will not be staying past 8pm,” “Thank you for inviting me, however I will not be drinking with you all tonight,” “I respect you all as my family, however if my (race/gender/sexuality, etc) becomes the main topic again, I will have to leave.” It is important to communicate your boundaries with the family member directly to ensure your expressed boundary is fully understood by the family system.
Practice patience: Change, unfortunately, doesn’t occur overnight. So, following the expression of your concerns with your family members, accept they may run into a few issues to change their behavior or may be initially confused when accepting the new boundary. However, if they truly love you as a family member, they will not become erratically defensive, and will continuously work towards respecting your newly expressed boundaries.
Cut them off if they’re overly hostile or defensive due to your verbally stated boundaries: Taking your stated boundaries to the extreme by becoming hostile, vindictive, bitter, etc is a huge red flag that cannot and shouldn’t be ignored. ANYONE WHO LOVES YOU WITHIN A FAMILY SYSTEM WOULD TAKE DRASTIC CONSIDERATION AND RESPECT FOR YOUR VERBALLY EXPRESSED BOUNDARIES. If you are met with nothing but hostile behavior and communication styles from the family member, please do not be afraid to officially cut them from your life. You have tried to respectfully keep the peace, yet their entitlement towards treating you a certain way is disrespectful and degrading. Understand that their unwillingness to even attempt to respect your boundaries has more to do with them that it has to do with you.
Utilize detachment: A hard truth involved with toxic family members, is they may never change. Despite our complaints, concerns, or expression of our feelings, we may not receive the apologies or accountability we’re truly looking for. Regardless of how many other family members agree with our views and statements, they may see nothing wrong with their behavior or treatment towards us. Thus, after communicating your boundaries, it is best to practice the art of detachment. By detaching yourself from the outcome of the conversation, you will save yourself the hurt when they fail to change their behavior and can restrict your availability towards them without feeling guilty.
Remember, sometimes WE might be a toxic family member:
As important as it is to recognize any toxic relationships we have within our families, it is just as important to understand how we may be considered toxic to other members. Due to our actions, behaviors, beliefs, etc, we may be negatively impacting another family members mental health as well. Thus, understand that if another family member wishes to express their new boundaries towards you during this holiday season, that’s okay as well. Offer them the grace to do so.
Although we love our family, we have the human right to protect our emotional and mental state when dealing with them. Verbally express your boundaries, and be prepared to deal with them accordingly based on their responses.