SACRED THINGS SHAMEFUL THINGS: TOXIC TRAITS

What are toxic traits?Toxic traits are harmful patterns, behaviors, attitudes, or habits that negatively affect you or the people around you, especially when they repeatedly damage relationships, emotional well-being, or personal growth.So when people say toxic traits what do they really mean?Are they simply the ugly parts of their personalities?The red flags we are taught to recognize and run from?Or simply the things that make them difficult to love?Being easy to love doesn’t make you a good person.Same as being difficult to love isn’t proof of being toxic.For me toxic traits are protective traits.Defense mechanisms turned destructive.The most dangerous thing about a defense mechanism is that it can continue protecting you long after the danger is gone.Maybe avoidance was once protection from conflict.Emotional detachment protection from disappointment.Pushing people away was easier than waiting on them.Sabotage was destroy them first so they wouldn’t be able to destroy you.Controlling things was easier than accepting uncertainty.Or blaming someone was easier than confronting the parts of ourselves we didn’t want to see.You might complain about loneliness without recognizing that the same mechanism protecting you from rejection is also preventing you from experiencing connection.People have different traits.People feel differently.Toxicity becomes toxic when you refuse to acknowledge it and allow it to affect how you behave towards other people.And that’s where it becomes unfair to other people.That you’d rather act on it and then blame a past experience.Your father always hitting your mother when you were a kid might have had lasting effects on you.But that isn’t an excuse for you to hit other people and treat them like shit.Yes it had lasting effects on you but understanding a behavior doesn’t excuse it.Same as acknowledging a behavior doesn’t make it less harmful.A person could openly admit to being manipulative, controlling, emotionally unavailable.And use their self-awareness as a justification for their behavior.Just as staying you know I have trust issues that’s why I checked your phone.Or you know i have anger issues don't make me hit you.Acknowledgment becomes a problem when it’s treated as permission to hurt people.She’s avoidant attachment isn’t an excuse for her to invalidate your feelings.Manipulative isn’t an excuse for them to toy with you and gaslight you.Recurrent abusive isn’t an excuse for him to hit you.I’ve come to realize we’d rather come up with names than treat the problem.In the ends these are just terms.They don’t explain how they started, what maintains them or if the person is ready to change.So is toxicity really about refusing to acknowledge a behavior.Not entirely.A person could struggle with harmful behaviors, recognize them, regret them and genuinely want to change but change takes time.The issue isn’t people eliminating all the undesirable aspects of their personality.It’s taking responsibility for their behaviors, respecting boundaries, making efforts and genuinely wanting change.And come to think of it.I'm not even a red flag.Wine perhaps, but definitely not red.A walking carnival maybe 🌚.

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