I need help with toxic people

[st****]

Hi! I need help. Im writing in this forum because im draining in despair. I have recently, some months back, had my initiation towards my spiritual awakening. I have been working very hard to love myself because no one has done it properly in my close circle during my whole life. I have been reading a lot, working out and spending time in nature, learning how to say sorry to the ones I’ve hurt, controlling my ego instead of it controlling me, it has really helped and made me improve. The problem of this comes within my personal relationships. I started my awakening noticing things about me that where pretty toxic and I had to change, I eventually did and work with all my heart on that every day all day. However, then I started noticing how the people around me where completely toxic as well, the people within my family I mean: my sister, step-dad, mom, VERY close people to me, with the witch I have to live everyday because I’m still a minor. I eventually noticed that all these narcissistic, manipulative and negative traits are all around my environment: noticing it between my pears at school, how they are many of them obsessed with control of others and maintaining a clean image (its a super small private school with high societal position teens). I noticed that the friendship I had with my best friend was just for her a way of gaining control, power and feeling well with herself. I’m exposing all this initially because my hope in society is dispersing away, and it’s starting to scare me a bit, still being conscious that I can’t loose hope because of my environment, I know there must be somewhere people from out of it that are different, I hope and they must, I expect it. However, I’m still very confused. I don’t know what to do. I’m really working hard everyday to be a better person and to love myself for the first time, but it seems like the people around me don’t manage to understand it. It has gotten to a point where I see the intentions in everyone as soon as they walk up to me, it has given very harsh anxiety problems, and it made me isolate in the bathrooms or classes to avoid having to perceive that negativity, and seeing no one on week ends. I would usually, like everyone I guess, just put some distances and boundaries with toxic people, with the ones I could I did indeed. But, what about the people I HAVE to be with because of the laws that our society has implied towards the minor? I can’t escape my family, not until I am 18 at least. I have tried everything, I have learned how to be alone, to meet my true self and passions in life, to be able not to have dependency on my relation with others (I had huge issues with that, it really gave me a huge anxiety and panic attacks). Now I can be alone, in fact it has become a problem because I prefer that than being with people. Still sometimes, during this isolation process that I am taking, everyday almost, an injection into my hurt heart of that feeling  of CRAVING human socialization comes to me; of wanting to love others and transmit all the love that my soul knows holds onto them. As Aristotle said, and with complete certainty, after all we are social animals, and I am as well. So this is my doubt as a whole? I have that feeling of craving contact in my soul, but each time I try, in this environment that I live in, they pull me and my self improvement process one step back: they make me fall back onto the hole of toxicity. And the hole that I fall back in is not the one that is transmitted onto our physical realm, but since I practice mindfulness a lot and take a lot of care with my words and actions towards others, they instead pull me into the deep hole of my own head. That constantly craves human touch, but knows that the people around me are not going to influence me in a positive way. I’m desperate and need someone to talk about this, I practice a lot the stoic tendency of not sharing my worries with others, since they already have enough with the relation they have with their selfs and their problems, and thus this has led me to literally feeling like I’m going crazy. I don’t know if maybe it’s me who is doing the things wrongly, I don’t try to change people, I just want to surround myself with people that share that same effort everyday of self improvement. However my head always tortures me onto thinking I might be loosing my papers, and treating the people that “love” me badly (I will use the braces because I haven’t felt real love in my life, again of course I’m not discarding this might because of my fault). So please, I really appreciate if someone has read this entirely, now, I really need some advice. Please if it’s me, I need to know what in me needs to change, if not, what can I do with those toxic people that I can’t set boundaries with. I don’t think I can be this isolated from society much more, I need help.

[Sa****]

Be patient, please be soft on urself and YOU are not crazy.you got this believe in yourself..u keep going on ur self improvement...and ignore those toxic people..because they Don't deserve ur time,attention,they don't a place in ur Mind.. Don't let it happen..if u keep remembering their toxicity again and again then do your hobbiesss and dont give a damn.you are great please dont let them push you down...u will shine trust me just be patient and only focus on urself..forget about their existence whenever they are being dense
Sending love🖤

[Sa****]

Correction - they don't deserve a place in your mind*

[su****]

It's great that you try to be self-reflective.

 

The easy way is to call somebody toxic and leave him/her behind and that's probably a good way to deal with strangers or people who are not important to you.

 

But there are also important people like close friends and your family.

The harder way is to ask yourself, why these act like they do.

 

Many people, like your friend, who want to be in control of things/people are insecure and afraid they are not in control of their lifes. So they desperately try to control anything. If you can build up enough trust with these people to get behind their wall of appearing powerful and strong, you can talk to them about their fears and you can try to help them. You will experience rejection but there is a chance to make it.

 

As a minor it can be hard to understand your parents. Parents usually try to enable a good life for their children and they hate it if their children don't respect them for their effort. Also they try to hide problems from their children to prevent them from worrying. So it is hard to call parents toxic if you don't know the whole story.

But you can ask them for honesty and you can ask them to share their problems with you.

 

Your sister and you are probably in a very similar situation, because you are surrounded by the same (maybe toxic) people. So the first thing you can do is to talk to your sister about your situation. It's important to convince her that you will not making fun of her, so she can feel safe and talk to you.

Edited April 20, 2022 by suedseefrucht

[fr****]

Fantastic you are changing your life,  some people can't or won't change it doesn't mean they don't love you. Sometimes they just don't know how to show it. Be the shinning example of what you can be. Some people will try to bring you down but just smile and rise above. You will not be trapped forever. Best of luck