They might be prickly, sad, cold or cranky and when you ask if there’s something wrong, the answer will likely be ‘nothing’ – but they’ll give you just enough to let you know that there’s something. There often isn’t anything obvious that will explain the change of attitude – you just know something isn’t right. They’ll be completely lovely one day and the next you’ll be wondering what you’ve done to upset them.

They’ll keep you guessing about which version of them you’re getting.

Knowing them will help you to avoid falling under the influence: There are plenty of things toxic people do to manipulate people and situations to their advantage.

You might not be able to change what they do, but you can change what you do with it, and any idea that toxic somebody in your life might have that they can get away with it. Their damage lies in their subtlety and the way they can engender that classic response, ‘It’s not them, it’s me.’ They can have you questioning your ‘over-reactiveness’, your ‘oversensitivity’, your ‘tendency to misinterpret’. If you’re the one who’s continually hurt, or the one who is constantly adjusting your own behaviour to avoid being hurt, then chances are that it’s not you and it’s very much them.īeing able to spot their harmful behaviour is the first step to minimising their impact. Sometimes it’s more like a drenching. Difficult people are drawn to the reasonable ones and all of us have likely had (or have) at least one person in our lives who have us bending around ourselves like barbed wire in endless attempts to please them – only to never really get there. We have all had toxic people dust us with their poison.

One thing i don t know why