11 Signs Your Most Toxic Problem Is You
Trying to be the hero. You think you can handle everything on your own, refusing to ask for help or even rejecting help when it’s offered.
Unwillingness to forgive. You’re stuck in the past, reliving past mistakes and ruminating about what shoulda, woulda, coulda while refusing to forgive yourself.
Fretting about the future. The opposite of letting go of the past is incessant worry about the future. Instead of shoulda, woulda, coulda you anxiously worry about maybes.
You glorify work. Your desire to overproduce and overwork feels good in the short-term, but in the long term its stress has a compounding effect on your health. This typically comes from a place of fear, or not feeling like you’re good enough.
Suppressing emotion. Believing that showing emotions is a sign of weakness so you instead suppress them to appear “tough.”
Feeling like you need to know “everything.” This shows up through excessive social media use; when you get on the internet and try to read all of it. The problem with doing this is it leads to negative comparisons and a distorted view of reality, which only exacerbates feelings of anxiety and low self-esteem.
Finding the flaw. Instead of noticing the good, you immediately look for the bad; you’re constantly putting yourself down looking for things that are wrong rather than feeling grateful for the things that are right. Along the same lines…
Perfectionism. Thinking that mistakes are permanent, setting unrealistic expectations for yourself or others, criticizing yourself or others based on an ideal version of reality that hasn’t been critically questioned.
Needing the “now.” You seek immediate gratification to avoid unwanted emotions in the moment (i.e., reaching for your phone every time a commercial comes on TV).
Putting others first—to a fault. There’s nothing wrong with being considerate about others, but when doing so places you secondary to everyone else, that’s a problem. When you ignore your own needs and refuse to set boundaries to please people, you only push yourself farther away from your true self.
Being “on.” Similar to putting others first, people who are always “on” feel they need to be constantly available and respond to texts, calls, or emails immediately.
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It is a never ending struggle. I try to identify the root cause and come back to a family culture that was the epitome of this article. Can’t blame my childhood anymore but trying to overcome the ingrained negativity and judging is a full time job.
This article is on point, next question is as I identify myself as the toxic person and accept that I have these behaviors. What tools are available to help me overcome this person I dislike and become the person I want to be?