The 8 toxic personalities you should eliminate from your life.

Profiles of people who can steal our optimism and energy.

Toxic personalities absorb our time and energy, and many individuals are unaware of the negative impact these people have on their lives.Many individuals are unaware of the negative impact these people have on their lives. These types of people are a source of conflict, create discomfort and stress, among many other problems.

A recent study by Friedrich Schiller University, which was conducted in Germany, shows how toxic people influence the well-being of the individuals around them.

• Article related: "Toxic friendships: 7 signs to detect a bad friend".

How toxic people affect our brain

In this research it was found that exposure to stimuli that cause strong negative emotions (such as these types of individuals) causes subjects to have a massive stress response, and this stress is harmful to our thinking organ.

Just a few days of exposure to the stressful stimulus compromises the efficiency of neurons in the hippocampusan important area of the brain responsible for reasoning and memory. A few weeks of exposure causes reversible damage to brain cells, and months of stress can destroy them permanently. As you can see, toxic people not only make you feel sad or anxious, but can leave long-term negative consequences.

Can people change?

Now, you have to be careful when it comes to labeling people. While it is true that there are individuals with a toxic personality, on many occasions (not all), it is possible to talk and solve the problems. All people can change, but they need to do their part as well..

However, toxic people do exist and can cause relational problems that will affect you in the long run. Whether in your circle of friends or at work, it is necessary to detect this source of stress because it can affect your well-being and quality of life.

• We recommend you to read: "23 signs that you have a toxic relationship".

Toxic personalities: how to detect them?

Have you ever had a co-worker who has criticized you behind your back simply for being envious? Or a supposed friend has lied to you to benefit from some situation without caring how it has affected you?

In everyday life situations we may encounter people who are going to hurt us, and no matter how much we do our part, they will only want to get their way no matter what. In these cases it is better to move away and surround ourselves with people who bring us something positive, who add and do not subtract..

There are different signs to detect a toxic personality. They are the following:

• It makes you lose your temper
• His presence has a strong negative impact on your self-esteem.
• He blames you when he is the guilty one
• You feel fear and discomfort when you have to be with him/her.
• You cannot be relaxed and calm in his presence.
• You are defensive when he approaches

Toxic personality types

Of course, before blaming others you need to look at yourself, because we can often focus on others to excuse our own behavior. Sometimes it is the relationship itself (in which we both participate) that leads a person to behave negatively towards us.

Individuals with toxic personalities, however, often behave the same with other people and in other situations. But... what types of toxic personalities can we find? Below you can find a list of toxic personalities.

1. Selfish

A toxic personality trait is selfishness. Selfish people are those who do not want to share anything with us, but when something interests them they are nice.

They are manipulative and may appear to be our friends, but their only goal is to get something in return. They are not a real friendship and we will not be able to deepen our feelings with them or give them our trust. Selfish people, sooner or later, will bring out their true personality.

On the other hand, those who stand out for their selfishness are also characterized by rejecting the idea of creating networks of collaboration and cooperation, because if this attitude starts to become popular, their ability to refuse to share may cause them to become isolated. The idea is, therefore, to make individualism prevail in almost all cases, except in those in which that person needs something from others.

2. Envious

Envious people always want what someone else has and they cannot have, and therefore, they are never happy with what they have.Therefore, they will never be happy that things are going well for others. This situation is unhealthy neither for the person who is a victim nor for the envious person, and behind envy there is always low self-esteem, frustration and pain.

Envy occurs because these people do not focus their happiness inward. Spending too much time around envious people is dangerous because he will feel a great resentment towards you and the people around him.

3. Manipulative

Manipulators steal time and energy from people under the facade that "nothing is wrong.". They have the facility to convince you even on those issues that do not suit you and to take you down the path they want, without hesitation and regardless of the negative consequences that a situation may have for you.

Manipulators detect other people's weaknesses, they do not stop until they get what they want, they are insatiable and always want to be in control.

• You can learn more about these aspects in our article: "Manipulative people have these 5 traits in common".

4. Abuser

Undoubtedly, one of the worst personalities that we can find is the abuser, but, unfortunately, abuse is a phenomenon that can occur not only in relationships, but also at school (known as bullying) or at work (known as mobbing). It is better to stay away from these people because they usually hide a great deal of hatred within themselves..

• Mistreatment does not have to be physical, it can also be psychological. If you want to know what an abuser is like: "Profile of the psychological abuser: 21 common traits".

5. Intolerant

Intolerant people are people who are full of prejudices and, therefore, are influenced by stereotypes and ideas of something or someone accepted as a pattern of qualities or behaviors.

Instead of appreciating and learning from people who are different from them, people who judge others look down on other individuals. Since they are not objective people, best to stay away from them.

6. Authoritarian

The authoritarian personality is the one that reigns in dictators.But these features can also present them the people who are not in the government (in spite of the fact that they act as if they had a very high quota of power).

These types of individuals have undemocratic behaviors and seek to exert control over the people around them, based on the idea that they are the ones who can best decide what is good and what is bad. Consciously or unconsciously, they do not listen to others and to those around them, as they think that the only valid criterion is their own and they want everyone to obey them.

7. Sociopath

Sociopaths are those people who show no empathy for others and no remorse for their actions.They may have a normal temperament, but they have not acquired a series of social skills due to the negligent and incompetent upbringing on the part of their family, which in many occasions involves situations of violence.

They may seem like charming people when you first meet them, but in the long run they show negative behaviors that affect the people around them, among other things, because they do not see others as their equals and therefore do not empathize.

• You can learn more about this personality type in our article: "Differences between psychopathy and sociopathy".

8. Neurotic

Neuroticism is what is known as emotional instability. We can all have a certain degree of neuroticism, but those who have a high degree of it and do nothing to regulate it and try to make their interpersonal relationships work, often pose a big problem for those in their social circles. This is because they do not tolerate well the small frustrations and setbacks that interaction with others brings in a natural and irremediable way.

Emotional instability has its origin in low self-esteem and irrational beliefs that are part of the mental schemes of the person, which lead them to be perfectionists and to focus their happiness on external factors. They are people who tend to live on an emotional roller coaster and may have childish behaviors..