Toxic families share dysfunctional and unhealthy traits which harm its members through emotional, psychological, and sometimes physical abuse. Toxic family dynamics can occur to anyone because often, toxic families can seem like normal ones. That is why it’s important to learn about the sources of unhealthy traits within families.
A toxic family can negatively impact you beyond not feeling happy at times. Not only can it cause long lasting trauma such as low self esteem, anxiety, and depression but can also affect you in many other ways.
9 Signs of a Toxic Family You Need to Watch Out For
Sign 1: Constant Criticism and Judgement
Family dynamics affect you every day whether you realize it or not. The biggest unhealthy trait that comes with a toxic family is constant judgement and criticism. A family who constantly picks on you, whether it be the way you dress, talk, things you like, and many other aspects can cause you to doubt yourself.
Constructive criticism can be useful to help you better yourself. However, constant negativity helps no one and is simply cruel. There’s a difference between constructive criticism and plain old judgement.
Constructive criticism means that you are helping someone better themselves. You’re taking time out of your day to help someone and you aren’t saying these things to be mean.
When you’re being judged you’ll often hear how rude you are, how fat you are, and many more personalized attacks. Constant put downs will make you feel worse about yourself.
Read also: 8 Smart Ways to Deal with Judgmental People
Sign 2: Lack of Support & Encouragement
One of the most defining traits of a toxic family is the lack of support they show one another. A family should be your home away from home and you should feel comfortable growing in your own skin around them. If you never feel like you’re good enough for your own family you will begin to feel very upset.
Let’s say you’re working hard to accomplish your goals and better yourself. You decide you want to go to college to become something you’re passionate about. If you come home to a family who doesn’t support your dreams and always puts you down about them, you’ll begin to believe you’re not good enough.
You may begin to feel as if there’s no point in trying because no one will be there to celebrate your accomplishments with you. Even if you get straight A’s you may come home to no one cheering you on. Because you haven’t felt support for so long you’ll soon believe that you aren’t good enough and that your family doesn’t care.
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Sign 3: Manipulation & Gaslighting
Gaslighting and manipulation are abusive tactics used to hurt others. Gaslighting means twisting the truth to your benefit. For example, the movie Gaslight was about a man who drove his wife literally crazy by changing things in the house and making her think she was crazy.
Gaslighting in a toxic family can include but is not limited to: denying things they’ve said, making you feel crazy, playing mind games, etc.
Manipulation can come in many forms such as guilt tripping someone, blackmailing, and playing the victim. In a toxic family, one may manipulate others to seem as if they are always the victim and someone else is always wrong.
Because children are involved, the manipulator will then make the child feel as if they are responsible for their actions and feelings.
Sign 4: Poor Communication
Healthy communication is key when it comes to family dynamic. There are many different styles of poor communication that can be hurtful. Yelling, stonewalling, and being passive aggressive are all negative ways to communicate with your family.
Yelling is a very obvious sign that there is a problem. No one likes being yelled at and when someone yells, it’s usually because they are worked up about something and about to explode.
Nobody wants to be around that type of aggression and it can make you feel as if you’re never going to be able to express how you feel without screaming back.
If someone continually refuses to listen to you or have a conversation about something that upsets you, they are stonewalling.
Not only will this make you feel like your problems aren’t important, but you’ll constantly feel like no one cares about how you feel.
Passive aggressive behavior can be very rude and hurtful. Saying things behind someones back instead of to their face, sabotage, and using sarcasm are all forms of passive aggressive behavior.
Passive aggressiveness makes people confused and can cause conflict because you never really know what someone is trying to say.
Read also: 35 Morning Mindfulness Journal Prompts
Sign 5: Control & Dominance
Every member of the family should be able to feel independent. However, in some dysfunctional families there will always be that someone who likes to control others. Controlling others can make someone feel as if they have no freedom to express themselves.
Some signs include making decisions for others, telling others what they should or should not do. Comments like “you should do it this way”, “if you loved me you would….” or “I don’t think that’s a good idea” are all forms of controlling someone.
Some people in toxic families will try to force their family members to live their lives how they want them to. If someone tries to control you, you will constantly seek their approval on anything you do.
You will always have doubt that you’re doing the right thing and you may feel as if you don’t have control over your own life. Long term you can develop low self esteem and anxiety from constantly trying to please someone.
Sign 6: Lack of Boundaries
Boundaries are important in every type of relationship. They help define each person’s feelings, needs, and responsibilities. When someone doesn’t follow or recognize your boundaries it can make you feel violated and disrespected.
A family with no boundaries often criticize one another, don’t allow privacy, and don’t allow freedom of speech.
If someone says something you don’t like, family members will automatically have to agree with that person and change their opinion to match the others.
Using emotional blackmail to play on someones feelings is another form of disrespecting someone’s boundaries. If someone constantly invades your privacy by reading your texts, listening in on phone calls, or entering your room when your alone, you’ll feel very bothered.
Sign 7: Emotional Instability
When someone is emotionally unstable it can affect your family dynamic. If someone is emotionally unstable they may take things out on others because they know they can. Their emotions are all over the place, they may yell without reason, and be very irritable.
You may feel as if you have to walk on egg shells around the emotionally unstable person in your life. You wouldn’t want to say or do anything that would upset them even more.
Other family members may become affected as well. If someone is always mad, then people may be afraid to support that hurting family member.
Children are especially affected when they grow up in a home with someone who is emotionally unstable.
Sign 8: Enmeshment & Codependency
Enmeshment is when a family is too involved in each others lives. There no sense of individualism and everyone seems to feel as if they have no control over their life.
Codependency goes hand and hand with enmeshment. When someone is codependent on you or you are on them, it creates an unhealthy relationship.
A common example would be if a parent was emotionally dependent on their child. The parent may provide their child with everything they want but expect their child to do the same thing for them emotionally.
Sign 9: History of Abuse or Neglect
If someone grew up in a home with abuse or neglect, they’ll most likely display toxic traits they learned from their parents. Abuse can come in many forms such as: physical, emotional, verbal, and sexual.
Neglect on the other hand could mean that they didn’t get enough attention growing up or their parents weren’t there emotionally for them when they needed them.
Growing up around abuse or neglect can cause someone to have low self esteem, anxiety, depression, and even PTSD.
Not only can this affect you, but it can affect your relationships you have with others. If you weren’t loved or supported growing up, you’ll probably expect that from everyone else.
Children who grow up around abuse may think this is how you treat your loved ones and they’ll continue the pattern. It’s important to seek help if you’ve been abused or know someone who has.
Seeking therapy can help you overcome these things and family therapy can help bring up these issues within your family.
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