Let’s talk about toxic people. You know who they are – the ones that might bully you, and then gaslight you. The ones who act out to get attention. The ones who belittle you and make you feel bad. The list goes on. It may seem “simple” enough to cut these people out of your lives, but things are rarely simple, right?
It’s not simple if you’re afraid to lose all the other friends you have in common. It’s not simple if you believe what they say and don’t realize they’re even toxic. I’ve been fortunate in my life that I’ve always had friends I could count on, and that if somebody was toxic, I felt comfortable cutting them out of my life (after talking to them to try to fix things, if possible, of course). But, I know not everybody feels like they can find a new group of friends.
It’s even less simple when it’s a family member. How often have you heard “well, he/she is family – just forgive them and move on” or something along those lines? Here’s the thing though. Family can be more than blood. And if you’re family, you should act like it. Family should treat each other BETTER than everybody else, not worse. That was one thing my dad taught me well when I was younger. He said, “look, I’m your family and will always love you and forgive you. But, that doesn’t mean you can treat me worse than you would your friends. That’s not right to treat someone badly because you know or think you can get away with it. If anything, you should treat them better.” That really resonated with me and stuck wtih me to this day.
That said, my (probably unpopular) opinion is that it is ok to cut toxic family members out of your life. If you’ve talked to them about their behaviors, and they’re not going to change, you’re allowed to do what’s best for your own mental and emotional health. I think Asian culture especially teaches you to be quiet and put up with a lot of mental and emotional abuse, but frankly, that’s not ok. You should be allowed to stick up for yourself. And society shouldn’t judge you for having cut out someone that was related to you from your life when they don’t know the whole story. It’s hard enough, I’m sure, for most people to make that decision. It’s even harder to deal with people’s judgements.
My husband and I had to do it once. It was tough and painful, but the person wasn’t changing. We were also planning on starting a family, and we had to consider if that person’s behavior would rub off on our future kids. Yes, you can teach kids things and why certain behaviors are bad – but they’re kids. They’re not going to understand everything all the time. And what they’ll see is somebody acting horribly that is getting away with it. That wasn’t what we wanted for our kids. It was a painful decision that was rough on everybody involved, but it was the best decision for us at the time.
So, if you have someone (family) toxic in your life, is it really worth it? Are they literally making you ill? I hope you don’t, and that you never have to make the decision to cut someone out of your life, but if you do, I wish you the strength and courage to do so.
Miuzing 