My Daily Reflections: Recognizing Toxic People by How They Make You Feel

You recognize a toxic person by how you feel when in their presence. Their actions trigger your most primal negative responses.

People who make you feel this way often say they love you, but their actions show that they really don't care how you feel.

These actions are not loving actions.

Loving actions make you feel worthy, accepted, cared for. 

Toxic actions make you feel guilty, ashamed, not good enough.

Use your feelings about yourself as a guide to whether you have been in the presence of a toxic person.

Here are some Signs that you have been in the company of a Toxic Person:

1. You feel that nothing you can say or do is good enough

2. You feel that your smallest flaw or perceived imperfection is always being pointed out to you. Your past mistakes are used against you to prove your unworthiness.

3. You feel that you're not allowed to be different or that you are expected to conform to their standards.

4. You feel second best or defective when around them because they act like they are fabulous and never make mistakes

5. You feel guilty and ashamed of who you are and the choices you have made

6. You feel criticized, or that your needs don't matter or that you are being manipulated into believing your are the problem and that you need to change.

7. You feel beaten, wounded, battered, bruised and torn after spending time with them

8. You feel that your boundaries have been disrespected and your "no” is turned around to make you feel selfish.

9. You feel un-cared for, that your feelings don't matter, and even that they enjoy seeing the suffering they cause.

10. They leave you feeling that everything is about them, what they think, and want and feel.

Toxic people can be older than you, the same age as you or younger than you.

Most often we forget that people younger than us can treat us toxically.

We usually think of toxic behaviours coming from our peers or those older than us. (The typical bully is portrayed as older). This is a fallacy.

Even those younger than us learn that toxic behaviours create a sense of power and they will use this to get what they want from those of us who tend to be kind, forgiving, compassionate peacekeepers.

Renate Dundys Marrello

2017 - 07 - 31

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My Daily Reflection: Resolving False Core Beliefs

False core beliefs cause turmoil in our lives.  The greatest problem in eradicating false core beliefs is discovering that we even have them.  I have been working on this in my healing journey for some time now and I am constantly surprised when a new false core belief crops up.

I have been working on an Oprah and Deepak 21 day meditation series called “desire and destiny” and unexpectedly came face to face with a false core belief that I was totally unaware I had!  I think I had warning signs, moments of discomfort but they were not enough for me to pinpoint the problem.

Then there was the exercise that asked the question; “what was the difference between a dream that came true easily and one that you struggled to make happen?” and it hit me like a ton of bricks, I have always struggled to make my dreams come true until recently.  

What changed?  

The trauma that I experienced is what changed.  

Before the trauma all of my dreams were altered or postponed or shrunk to accommodate other people in my life.  

In my younger days my parents influenced my dreams by often pointing out how unpractical they were.  

Later pressure from parents and in-laws to have a family put my dream for traveling in the trash.  Later still my children and their welfare meant putting aside my dreams to make sure theirs needs were met.  My dreams were always less important than other people's expectations of me!

Finally in my retirement years I resurrected my dream to travel.  I have been traveling quite frequently and for the first time I felt free, like something that had great meaning and value for me was becoming reality.  For the first time in my life I was dreaming and planning something that came from my heart of desires.  And the projects and plans came together effortlessly, and I experienced the joy of numerous adventures until…

That “until” almost destroyed my dream.  I was called selfish for going after my dream of travel.  This was done by someone very, very close and dear to me.  Someone I never expected to rob me of my dream! But she did, she called me selfish.  Told me I was a narcissist for traveling (my dream finally come true).  For a full year my love of travel was destroyed.  I started to question my right to fulfill my dream!  I postponed making any further plans to travel.  I made excuses not to travel and the short outings that I did take were filled with fear and anxiety.

Then I did this course and I had that “ahha” moment when I realized what my gut had been trying to tell me, my dream was almost lost because I lost my belief that I deserved to have a dream come true.

I allowed the words and actions of another person once again to influence me and reinforce my false core belief that I am unworthy of having my dreams come true.  I almost repeated the same action that I have repeat for my whole life; that of giving up my dreams because I had been taught that my dreams are secondary to everyone else’s dreams and everyone  else's happiness.

I wrote this statement in one of the answers to the questions in the course:  “I am grateful for the knowledge that I am allowed to be true to my dreams and my goals and that I don’t have to put them on hold to please others. It is neither my job nor my responsibility to make others feel good by giving up on my dreams.”

What a revelation!  All my life I have given up my dreams to allow others to feel good.  I never put my need to feel good first.  It has taken me to my 65^th year of living to finally figure out that it is neither my responsibility nor my job to sacrifice my dreams so others can feel good!

I learned that just because that false core belief made me sacrifice my own happiness so many times in the course of my life I do not have to continue to do so.  I am not the problem here!

The problem is the false core belief that was instilled in me and perpetuated in me by others who benefited from me giving up on my dreams. They used guilt and shaming and bullying and name calling and reminders of obligations and responsibility to get me to give up on my desires; to follow their vision of what they thought my life ought to be. 

They never thought to ask what I might want my life to be, because they assumed they knew better than I or they had something to gain by me fulfilling their dreams rather than my own.  Or maybe they just assumed that I had less right to happiness than they did and that if I fulfilled my dreams I might be happy or God forbid, happier than they are!!

I am going back to my travel and adventure dream projects with a lighter heart. 

I have exposed the false core belief! 

I DO deserve to go after my dreams and I DO deserve to make my dreams a reality and I DO deserve to be happy. 

And NO, it is neither my job nor my responsibility to give up on my happiness to ensure that they feel good.  If they love me, like the say they do, then their feeling good should come from seeing me happy and fulfilled!  If they say they love me but want me to give up on my dreams because it makes them feel bad, then they don’t really love me for me, they only love me for how I make them feel when I give in to their wishes and they are only happy when they see me sad or unfulfilled over giving up my dreams. 

That is not love; that is control and manipulation.  That is something the new healthier, self aware, self compassionate I, is no longer willing to tolerate.

Calling me selfish in an attempt to get me to give up on my dream is unkind, mean-spirited and yes selfish, because what it really demonstrates is that you are more interested in guilting me into making you feel good than in feeling happy for me for going after my dreams and feeling content and happy. You are being selfish when you claim that my happiness makes you feel bad. Insinuating that I need to be punished for going after my happiness is a very mean spirited thing to do to someone you claim to  love.

My new awareness of boundaries helps me to understand that this use of guilt (telling me I am  neglecting my duty and responsibility to them) is a deliberate attempt to overstep my boundaries and my right to feel good about myself. And my new awareness of boundaries has taught me that I too deserve to protect myself from the envy and jealousy of those who try to take away my happiness by invoking my well trained tendency to put others ahead of myself.

A well trained lifelong doormat responds quickly to implied wrongdoing and guilt is an easy target for emotional manipulate in a codependent personality.  

However the sleeper has awakened! 

Renate Dundys Marrello

2017 – 07 – 29



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post estrangement: healing encompases much learning

Obviously, anyone who is struggling to heal from trauma goes through many stages and steps toward recovery.  There are many ways we learn to make changes within ourselves, our thought patterns, our responses, discovering false core beliefs etc.

However one of the most valuable tools that I have discovered in healing is learning about the bad behaviour patterns of others.  The more I am aware of the types of actions used by Character Disturbed People (that is people who lack character and to some degree actually gain pleasure from using and hurting others) the more I realize that being proactive in recognizing these traits and categorizing them as "bad behaviour" and then making choices for my own defense the more "safe" I feel.

One of the aftermaths I experienced post trauma was a fearfulness.  For a long time I did not recognize what was holding me back, I just resisted virtually all social situations. I felt great anxiety or panic when forced to face such situations.  Now, as I have learned so much more, I have come to realize that this is my "flight" response in anticipation of being rejected and exposed to more of the same trauma.

I never learned about bad character in my life and so I was not prepared for encounters with bad people.  Most of my life the manipulators and controllers went under the radar!  Their jabs so subtle that that vague sense of un-ease I felt was my fault, I labeled myself as too sensitive.  Oddly enough this was often reinforced when I did dare to voice my opinion that I was feeling hurt!   You know exactly what I mean;...the well meaning advice "oh you are just being too sensitive". 

How many unkind words are spoken, how many put downs uttered, how many times are we made to feel inadequate and when we complain we are the "overly sensitive" ones; or we have no sense of humour; or we misunderstood.  And when the events of unkindness are small ones we tend to ignore our inner warning signs.

Here is an example from my past.  I redecorated a room. I put in hours of research, found pictures that spoke to me and made me feel good.  I was excited about creating this room and worked hard finding the colours and patterns to create my vision.  When done I was incredibly proud of what I had accomplished.  When completed, most people enjoyed the results.  However one person looked and said "I would never do a room like that!"  Now this was not a direct insult but it did imply that my room lacked appeal.  I ignored the warning signs that this was not a nice person. I continued to be friends with her. 

Years later when our children were teens and I confided in her my challenges with my son she blamed me for his behaviour.  It was my fault because I was not strict enough.  Now that of itself hurt, but she then went on to make sure my children knew that she felt I was an inadequate parent. She continued to undermine my parenting because my children started going to her for advice and ignoring mine.

Here is a classic example of how a "gut feeling" ignored early in the relationship led to this person remaining in my life to cause me harm later on.

The small warning signs should NEVER be ignored. First of course we need to know that they are in fact warning signs.  And sadly that is not something I was taught and I presume that there are many "nice, people pleasing" types of people around who fall into the same category of lack of knowledge, as I did.  We brush off the small slights maybe with a cringe, but we forgive and forget too easily.  For this reason a vital aspect of healing is to learn to recognize  these warning signs. That requires learning about what makes manipulative controlling egotistically full of themselves people tick! 

The second thing we need to learn is that we do not have to tolerate such behaviour!  We do have the right to respond with boundaries and limitation setting retaliations!   In the past my "I am a nice person" persona did not allow me to do this.  So my next step in healing is overcoming my fear of responding!

I can recognize bad behaviour, my "gut" always warns me.  If I feel bad I know I have been treated bad.  But now I also have the vocabulary to define what the bad behaviour is!

In the process of healing I have gotten good at removing myself from the presence of people who exhibit bad behaviour.  I call this my coward approach, but in my fragile state of recovery it was all that I was able to accomplish.  If you do or say something that is derogatory or harms me, I reserve the right to remove myself from your presence.  That is called "flight"

Now I face my next challenge, when I recognize bad behaviour to confront the person immediately with a response about how I feel about their behaviour and that I won't tolerate it!  That is called "fighting".

Most of my life I have used "fawning", doing things to try to get people to like me and treat me better, or "freezing", trying to become invisible, insignificant not worth picking on.  I never felt I had the right nor the option to flee or to fight. 

Healing has taught me that I do have the right!  

As always, dear reader, I love to hear your thoughts on what healing has taught you.

Renate Dundys Marrello

2017 - 07 – 07

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