CUTTING Toxic Relationships From My Life !!

Either make the choice to heal the relationship or do away with it. If it can't be healed limit your interactions treat them like a stranger. Understand if the toxic person refuses to change keeping the relationship will harm them & you.

You will be brought down which will make you resent them, & you allowing them to get away with it will allow their behavior to continue making them get stuck in a vicious cycle of becoming more vicious losing their friends & depending on you to continue their behavior. This will make them resent you eventually. With family it's tough, but if it's necessary limit interactions only being around them when you have to.

 

I am going through this with my family as well and it's really tough. In addition to what ThatMagnetMan said, be wary of your toxic relatives using other relatives or friends as agents to keep tabs on you.

To test if relatives have your back, pay attention to their words and actions. Lets say a family member tells you they have your back and you can go to them for help for example. If you then go to them for help and you get the feeling they aren't taking you seriously, I would be wary of trusting that person. I went through this with my younger brother. Now I am not talking to him. I don't have room in my life for this crap.

 

I was watching this video the other day-- literally called 'Breaking from your Parents', made by a former therapist. I was thinking about a similar issue in my own life, and I found some of the stuff he had to say here pretty insightful and possibly helpful:

While I definitely haven't separated from my parents altogether, I would say that moving out and going through a period of minimal contact w/ them-- and this was back a couple years ago-- really allowed me to grow as a person and live slightly more the way that I wanted to. It took a lot of weight off my shoulders. If you (or any person reading this) haven't found an excuse to get as far away from home as possible (even temporarily), then do that as soon as possible: maybe only to see how it feels. Your parents or relatives might adjust to LESS contact as just a normal thing in proportion to the greater distance.