Warning: Toxic!

[The Madame X]

[SoVeReIgN]

[RavenHarte]

[The Madame X]

[EzikielTempted]

[Dys]

[Khan]

[Amara-Syn]

[LadyGigiFrost]

MadameX.
Thank you for bumping this for me.
I just wanted to let you know that I am going through this post and reading it .


Lady Frost

[SophieAnn]

Hello.

I agree with what has been posted here, but there is something I want to add.

I believe it is both necessary and healthy to observe unhealthy relationships concerning the people around us. There are some who seem to dwell on drama and also use this as an instigator to thrive on others' energy (also giving the rest of us a bad name). I certainly know that there have been emotional vampires in my past, and some who I have needed help to prise away from my space after I have done all I can.

However, as a counselling student I do want to question the way we use 'toxic'. To me toxicity means 'poison', 'to be avoided'. Even when the concept of pain is so paramount, I feel for the person who strives to gain emotional energy in this way. To suggest toxic is to assume that for as long as the label stands (and usually much longer than it need) a person is beyond the need, the comfort and the love of another. Even a drama queen has needs!

I would also like to draw attention to the idea of emotional and mental disorders. The ones that spring to mind immediately are bipolar and borderline personality disorders. Within the former, the sufferer is driven to extremes between being needy, and being high. Unlike emotional vampiricism where the need is to attain energy from maintaining dramas, within bipolar the sufferer is driven towards extremes, often involving others to support them through the lows and keep them safe during highs. For anyone involved, this is exhausting and demanding and often drugs are the only way of dealing with this: mindfulness and talking therapies only have a limited effect. To the sufferer there is the prospect of suicide. To the carer, there is the constant draining and demands.

Borderline personality is often characterised by neediness of sucking another in to what is at first glance quite easy to sort out but becomes ever more complex. Like a proverbial fly within a web each attempt to struggle out gets entangled deeper. Boderline personality sufferers often have difficulty understanding reality (or what most of us would identify as a solid enough reality to connect with others!) and that distortion affects negatively their view upon themselves and the world. I believe this can also be confused with emotional vampiricism since there is a need to hook others into a web of drama.

In both of these examples, serious help is needed. Yes, should we become entangled within their dramas, we need (as per the example of the emotional vampire) to get out. But we also need to realise these people need help, and to use whatever resources we have to encourage a person to attain it. Should they not do so, this is of course their choice and they need to realise there is only so much we can do. (even I as a potential therapist can only do so much with theories and voice.) But please.... these are people who need our love and recognition. They are suffering. Let us, at least within our minds not call 'them' 'toxic' but instead send them our love and very best wishes. Who knows how long it will be before they meet another who can do this?

Sophie

[Lynskha]

That is a good topic to be dicussed. Unfortunately I believe most of us came across situations like that. People that simply act in a way to drain others, and people do not realize and do everything to protect and help them. Even losing money, facing problems at work or with family in order to defend these toxic people. Sometimes it is hard to get out of a situation like that.