Toxic people are generally abusive and may be narcissistic (Narcissism and NPD). There are a few easy ways to tell if you are with a toxic person, although working out which kind of Toxic person can be a bit more complex. Either way, testing for toxic allows you to work out enough to know to get away or, at worst, try to manage them.
The “No” Test
NPD people often use people’s innate conflict avoidance to gain control over situations, so that they can feel powerful. They will ask you to do things, or give you false options so that you think you are choosing, but there is no actual choice. They feel good because they get what they want and they feel powerful because they know that they have made you do something.
The test method is simple. Say “No”. You can say it in a few formats, “No thanks”, or “No, I don’t want to”. So long as it is approximately polite, starts with “No” and doesn’t say why. This can work any time after the first few weeks of Honey Trapping – where they are trying to be on their best behaviour and trying to be as civil as possible.
Civil People will accept your right to say “No” and not push you to say “Yes”. A Civil Person will often check to see if there is something that is obviously blocking your desire to want to do the thing, such that they can politely address that, so that you may choose to say do it. When the Civil Person is told “No, I just don’t want to”, they’ll accept that and move on.
Toxic People, especially NPD and Narcissism, cannot abide independent free will. That is, you having a choice that wasn’t made by them. When presented with a “No”, they’ll often try to cajole, manipulate, threaten (self, you or another) or misbehave to push you to change your mind, pushing you into either conflict avoidance or nurturing them. This is much like a child who has a tantrum because you said “no”, except these are adults who should have learned how to deal with not getting instant gratification from another.
If you do change your “No” into a “Yes”, the Narcissistic person will be happy – but not because they successfully adjusted the thing you were hesitating on so that you can enjoy that option – but because they got what they wanted from you, compliance, control and as a bonus, they made you do something you didn’t want to. When testing them, make your mind up on a thing to say “No” to and stick to it and see if they behave civilly, or not. Three tests in a week is usually all that it takes for them to expose their “concerning behaviours”. While this won’t prove that are they have Narcissism, or are NPD, but it certainly shows that they have a toxic perception of your consent.
Reflecting on Your Limits
Another way to tell that the person you are with is toxic is to reflect on your limits. In the beginning of your relationship (whether intimate, friendship or business relationship), you likely stated things that you won’t do. These may be due to fear, moral/ethical limits, legal limits, or some other good reason not to do them. If you are honest with yourself, prior to meeting this person, there are things that you know you’d never freely do of your own volition.
Reflecting on these, how many have you done? How many lines did you cross?
Of these, how many were because you genuinely wanted to push your limits, or you organically grew beyond your former limits? More importantly, how many were because this person pushed you to do things that you didn’t want to do?
Part of the power games that Narcissists do is dominating you and making you do things you chose not to do. There is no power in you deciding you want to do this, they have to trick you or force you into it. They may push at how bad that limit is, and then trick you into letting them force you past it, or they may be more blatant about threatening behaviours until you cave in and do it.
Even one of these is a sign that this person is toxic, and in so seeing that, best to do the checks for Red Flag Behaviours.
Trapped Test
There are people that we like and want to be with, because of how much we enjoy their company. There are people that we don’t mind, so will willingly interact with them along with people that we do like, or at the least due to a lack of people that we do like enough, these people are good enough. This is fine.
What isn’t fine is when we feel like we have to have something to do with a person, because we have no choice. What isn’t fine is when we feel like we can’t get away. This is a part of how NPD people dominate and control you.
The mechanisms that Toxic People use are children, pets, assets, social isolation, fear, financial, religion, moral quandaries, tricked promises (where they tricked you into a promise – see the Social Contract), social pressure etc. A mechanism to tell that you are trapped is that you don’t want to be there, but for some reason can’t see a way to leave. The mechanism is either going to cost you too much (social, financial, soul), or you fear the repercussions.
If you feel trapped, even if you don’t quite know why, it is time to wake up and take a cold hard look at what is going on.
Know that the feeling of being trapped is an illusion. You can almost always get out, there are ways of escaping abuse.
Comfort Test
Are you comfortable in the relationship? Do you actually feel supported, understood, wanted and valued? Be careful not to mistake those for the rescuer complex (propped up then dropped so they can rescue you), a feeling of understanding but they seem to often misunderstand what you mean, needed and used. Are you comfortable?
If you look at who is doing what in the relationship, is it about 50/50? Again, don’t mistakes actions for claims. The FIGJAM persona means taking credit for everything and doing very little to earn that credit. It is their actual repetitive intentional actions that count, not the love bombing (lavish gifting and service to buy back your affection after bad behaviour) or sparse gold nuggets (occasional nice actions in a desert of abuse).
If you look at how they interact with you, are they honest, timely with information, respectful, giving words of affection/affirmation, do actions of affection/affirmation, fair, negotiate, humble, admit to error, and learn from their mistakes (meaning they don’t repeat errors or at the least show significant improvement because of their understanding of their error)? Or are they frequently blaming you, making you responsible for their choices and actions, gas lighting you, belittling you, moving goal posts, lying, ignoring evidence, never learning from mistakes, never humble, won’t admit to what they did that was wrong, and use emotion instead of logic to push you to do things?
I’m going to just spare a few extra words for the love bombing. It is a part of the mechanism of Pursuit, one of the stages of The Cycle of Domestic Violence. This can be used by an intimate partner, or “friend” (frenemy) or a work mate. After a stranger treats you poorly, you’ll likely just walk away because it is simple and easy to do so. NPD and other toxic types can’t let you get away, otherwise they end up very lonely and isolated, and that is worse for them than anything. After they have done their violence (Explosion phase), and made it your fault (Blame phase), they need to convince you to stay.
The Pursuit Phase is where, in order to convince you to stay, they try to convince you that things will change. They will lie. These toxic people will use
- Hollow Words like “I love you”, “everything I do, I do it for you” and “you are the only one who gets me” etc, which are important phrases to you, but clearly don’t meant the same to them as they don’t change.
- False Promises, like “I’ll never hurt you again” and “I’ll go and get help”. Words are cheap, actions are where it is at. If they cannot admit to what they are doing and why that is harmful, they cannot change their actions.
- Empty Gestures, like gift giving or some kind of service, to purchase your regard instead of earning it. These love bombs just distracts you from what they are doing.
- Crocodile Tears, to trigger your nurturer, where they seem so genuine in their distress at the things they’ve done to you, admit to doing something non-specifically wrong, state that they are the bad guy, that it’s all their fault! This all disappears when you promise to stay.
Importantly, a genuine civil person means their words, keeps their promises, offers genuine amends and has genuine remorse or empathy followed up by actual change.
The abuser can’t and won’t change.
Traffic Light System
The Traffic Light System was developed to help people learn the tools needed to recognise appropriate boundaries and determine if someone is harmful. The test for toxic is mostly focused on the Toxic People – Mind Toolset, but the rest of the system bears mentioning too.
The Flag System helps you know what Green Flags indicate that someone’s behaviour is good, and which Red Flags warn you that someone may not be.
Trust Zones extends the Flag System into knowing that when someone has earned the Green Zone (comfort / good), Amber Zone (caution) and Red Zone (concern). This helps us know what level of alertness to be for people who have earned these zones, so that we don’t waste energy being over alert around Green Zone people, or foolishly under alert for Red Zone people.
The Toxic People – Mind Toolset is a tool for helping people to better interact with others. It steps through assuming the good in people, letting people make mistakes and learn from them, down to recognising that some people cannot resist being harmful either due to an inability to learn or a lack of desire to be nice. At this point we change the Assumption of Good to an Assumption of Malice.
Lastly the Three Pillars Method helps guide on how forgiving to be for people who are genuinely trying to do better, so that we don’t give our toxic person yet another second try (is that 432 so far?) When is it fair to say “I’m done with you?”