“She may be manipulative, but she is self-aware”
In which we discuss toxic relationships and our own faults. In this budget therapy session, we learned that it’s okay to make mistakes as long as you learn and don’t continue to be a dick.
Don’t you know that you’re toxic? (Violins)
We might all be toxic. At least a little bit. We’re human, and toxic behavior is somewhat unavoidable. But when does toxicity become abusive?
Lucy wanted to talk about this because she’s been in some toxic relationships, but she also knows that there are behaviors that everyone is susceptible to perpetrating.
Even in friendships it’s something you have to work on and keep and eye out for. Lucy in particular has been made aware of how toxic habits need to be addressed–especially with friends that you also happen to live with.
But What Is Toxic?
Gina wonders if toxic is something–a behavior–that starts out small but accumulates until it is destructive. Kelly wonders if it isn’t necessarily cumulative, but can also be something that exists at the same level for a long time.
Sissel said fuck all this theorizing, lets do some research! She found a lovely article written by John Kim for Psychology Today called 5 Signs of a Toxic Relationship. Honestly it’s a good read, and John Kim is apparently very well versed in the subject, particularly Toxic Masculinity! He even has a couple podcasts, books, and other articles about it! Peruse Sissel’s googling!
The basic jist of the article is that toxic things are a feature of an abusive relationship, but they are also a feature of a non-abusive relationship. Sissel thinks that this means, Gina is sort of right, in that when the toxic behaviors become too many too frequent that is when it becomes abusive.
Hannah really wants to know: How do you counteract the toxicity in a relationship? Well, for starters, here are some behaviors you might want to avoid:
- Subtle Character Assassination
- Control Without Knowing It
- Jealous Passive-Aggressive Behavior
- Never Taking Ownership
- Negativity For Too Long
Subtle character assassination is so commonplace in our culture, since teasing someone is often a standard part of flirting, but it’s so easy to take it too far.
Yeah, we do all that shit.
We discuss how difficult it can be to recognize these behaviors in ourselves. Not to mention where those behaviors are coming from. Our well-educated medical opinion is that all toxic behaviors stem from insecurity. In fact, Kelly is really John Kim LMFT, writer for Psychology Today, so you know this is legit.
Sissel and Hannah reveal they are both likely to perpetuate “Control without knowing it” in their attempts to love too tightly. Hannah is also extremely Passive-Aggressive. Sissel used to be “negativity for too long” but therapy, time, and a lack of depression have really helped.
Maisie says she does all of these things! Supes healthy!
Lucy and Sissel’s pet peeve is people who don’t take ownership. Sissel especially has problems with her dad over this. Hannah has a history of being defensive instead of taking ownership, and she’s working on it.
QUICK APOLOGY PAUSE!
Take this quiz! (And find out your Apology Language!)
Back to toxicity
Gina’s big pet peeve in relationships is people who are negative all the time. She had a friend in college who frequently complained and it just really weighed her down.
Hannah has been working on stamping down her aggressive positivity, which she considers toxic even though it’s not on this list. Gina tells us a tidbit about how restorative justice pushes back about using “at least” as a way of minimizing someone else’s pain to make yourself feel more comfortable.
Lucy reminds us how one-uppers are also part of this toxic behavior, which are super prevalent in students. No I stayed up later! Ugh, you think YOU’RE tired??
This all reminds Sissel about a friend of the Throbbers from High School who exhibited a lot of toxic traits at the time.
Sissel points out that, when it comes to romantic relationships, it’s rare that women are portrayed as abusers as opposed to men. She has to remind herself that in real life, she can, in fact, be at fault.
Toxic Women
What seems to be more common than women being portrayed as toxic in a relationship is women being portrayed as part of toxic friendships. Mean Girls, anyone?
Gina is frustrated because we are not trained well. We don’t have great emotional training and our ability to take ownership for bad behaviors is ironically absent in our property-obsessed culture. Children are told to forgive other kids who cause them harm, even if they aren’t ready to accept the apology, which isn’t a valid form of accountability for the harming party.
Gina’s Thesis!
When women are portrayed as toxic in media, it’s often more to fault the man for being too dumb to see it than to actually dissect the woman’s motives. Case in point…
The Throbbers agree this is a thing! We validate the thesis!
Lucy says it’s the female version of the “Nice Guy” trope.
Sissel reminds everyone of the great film, She’s the Man, which contains a great example of the fake toxic girlfriend, who’s toxic for comic relief, but a woman’s toxicity isn’t authentically examined. She’s a caricature of a toxic woman, not meant to be considered a serious threat.
Kelly points out that people in media are usually on very opposite sides of a spectrum: Extremely abusive or perfect. And if they’re considered a good character, the only flaws they have are “cute” or otherwise redeemable.
Long Term Friendships & Toxic Behavior
Lucy has had a lot of friends that she’s kept for most of her life, and so her friends know her well enough to understand her behaviors. They understand where her behaviors come from, and know enough to hold her accountable. Which is kinda nice, actually.
Toxic Maisie
She self identifies as a manipulative person, and knows that when you’ve known someone for a really long time then it becomes very easy to push their buttons and emotionally bully them. Maisie does it to her mom all the time. She thinks it’s kind of a problem…
(Uh, yikes.)
Hannah points out that she’ll have to deal with her mom’s breakdown when she bullies her. Maisie just lets her dad, who is not capable of handling it, handle it. She says that she’s a bully due to a self esteem issue.
The Throbbers doctors agree that it is the root of all evil, a lack of self esteem. (But also, it isn’t enough to just recognize the problem. You have to, you know, cut it out at some point.)
Toxic Friends
A friend of Sissel’s brings up another possibly toxic behavior: Is someone befriending everyone in your life in an effort to get closer to you toxic? Well, it can definitely be creepy…
Us Throbbers share our Google calendars, but that’s not creepy because we say so. (Also because it’s, you know, consensual.)
All this talk of toxic friendships has reminded Hannah of the movie Book Club… or maybe another movie.
No she was getting it confused with Wine Country! Another film about women of a certain age and their friendships!
SPOILER ALERT (sort of)
_____
_____
It’s a movie about women who have been friends for 20 years. The climax is them all getting into a big fight where they really use their insecurities against each other. They knew each other so well that it was easy to do. They hadn’t been working on fixing their issues in a constructive way so there was plenty of build up.
_____
_____
End of Spoiler ALERT (sort of)
Lucy knows she and her roommates don’t have a perfect relationship but they do try and communicate about things that bother them. They refuse to be passive-aggressive.
Gina acknowledges that this is something she struggles with. She doesn’t immediately register that she is being a passive-aggressive. It takes her avwhile to actually communicate and deal with it.
Hannah reminisces about when we planned a quick weekend trip. She wanted everyone to fill out a spreadsheet, and they weren’t and it was really bothering her! Maisie says Hannah and Sissel were crazy to expect people to fill out a spreadsheet for a weekend trip!
Lucy points out that everyone is different. Everyone has different needs and expectations. The most anyone can ask for is to at least communicate about what they are capable of doing.
Sissel was initially struggling with how managing the podcast was going because no one was helping! But she realized that she hadn’t communicated what she wanted, and when she does the things are way more likely to get done! Especially if there’s a poll! The Throbbers love a good poll, they’re so exciting and shiny and easy to fill out!
Sissel really has to strike a balance about how to communicate and ask her Throbbers to do things, without overwhelming everyone.
Picking titles for these podcast episodes is really difficult and Sissel doesn’t want to choose them. The Throbbers all agree picking the titles is hard. (Fun fact: Now we choose them via a poll.)
Toxicity and Sex
The only time Gina has experienced this is when a former sexual partner pressured her into sex. She was only seeing him for sex. When he invited her over she was excited for a sexual stress reliever. However, she got lulled into sleep by his nature documentary. While she was trying to nap, he kept pushing her through physical contact. Eventually her body responded positively and she became awake enough and interested enough to have sex with him.
Looking back on the situation, she was extremely disturbed. The pressure he put on her to have sex when she was trying to take a nap was unnerving. Even though she enjoyed the sex, the memory of the whole experience was tainted. She didn’t want to see him anymore.
Lesson being, even if it’s a purely sexual relationship, you still don’t get to pressure someone into having sex with you!
Sissel worries about sexually pressuring being one of her toxic behaviors. She is a very sexual person, and she isn’t afraid of initiating. She is concerned she will pressure her current partner into having sex when he isn’t interested.
In the past, when Sissel tried to initiate sex with her partner and he wasn’t interested, rather than saying that with words, he instead made loud pterodactyl noises at her. Which is, uh, not ideal.
There is a rejection problem with sex that most of us need to deal with at some point. When we are rejected, we shut down and deem ourselves unworthy, which can negatively affect us going forward. The key is not taking rejection personally, but that’s easier said than done…
Being Told You Are Bad At Sex
Gina has never experienced this, but she assumes it would be very hard to deal with.
Sissel can confirm that it is not fun! She is pretty sure she is bad at blow jobs, since she doesn’t have a lot of experience with them, and she has definitely been told to stop.
Hannah has never recieved “feedback” (actually we hate this term, communication is better, feedback sounds like filling out a form or something) about her sexual prowess but she could see people’s preferences coming into play.
Hannah knows she is very bad at communicating what she likes and doesn’t like during sex. There was one situation where someone was being very vocal and she didn’t like it but didn’t know how to tell him that wasn’t helping her.
Lucy says there is a good way to communicate with people about what you’re enjoying and what you’re not into. And maybe don’t make pterodactyl noises at them?
Toxic Behavior Online
Something Sissel finds particularly toxic, or just generally gross, is when people (mostly men) openly troll on Facebook! Or when they just have public Facebook profiles in general, that’s so sus. Most of her experience with this comes from two cousins-by-marriage of hers who are annoying Facebook trolls. That’s gotta bleed into their relationships, right? We don’t actually have data on this. It just feels blegh.
Sissel experienced schadenfreude when one of said cousins couldn’t have their 200-person wedding during the middle of a pandemic because he got coronavirus. What can the Throbbers say, climate change deniers who are antagonistically pro-life and don’t believe Covid-19 is a problem getting their irresponsibly planned wedding…might be a lil bit of karma.
We take this opportunity to go off the rails slightly. We’re tired.
More Toxic Friendship Stuff
Hannah recently tried to ghost a friend into un-friendship. It didn’t work and she really had to talk to her friend about ending it. It is over now and not with a horrible blow out. Because of this situation, a coworker told Hannah about her own toxic friendship. She had a friend who would attack her for not talking to her, while not reciprocating about checking in. In these horrible times, everyone is going through shit, you can’t expect people to check in on you all the time.
It was really interesting because the friend who was exhibiting toxic behavior went to therapy after Hannah’s friend talked to her. In therapy she discovered her issues in enough of a way that they decided to maintain the relationship.
If a relationship is good, you’ll figure out how to fight for it, through addressing your impact on people, going to therapy, and realizing you’re causing harm.
Moral of the story go to THERAPY!
Sissel is reminded of an instance in college where she was part of a friend group who had an extremely toxic friend. She was always checking up on them, like, an unhealthy amount, and the friend group never confronted her about it so she never had a chance to improve. Thankfully both Sissel and Ginger (Remember Ginger from 3…2…1… Covid!?) got out of that situation.
Lucy reiterates that it’s important to actually communicate about what’s bothering you. If not, you become complicit in not helping to solve the problem.
It’s like a shitty boss who fires you before giving you a write up (as Gina says, succinctly).
If you talk about it and they don’t change, then you’ve done your part. Maybe it’s time to leave the friendship.
Kelly knows she is guilty of this because she doesn’t like conflict and she grew up in a very passive-aggressive family. She doesn’t want to have those tough conversations, instead she just wants to end her friendships. It was very common in elementary school to just deal with toxic friendships instead of ending them. She is very grateful to have friends she actually likes now!
Hear hear, say the other Throbbers with past far-from-perfect friendships.
Friendship Breakups
In a way, breaking up with friends is harder, which is why Hannah put it off for a year! There wasn’t anything her friend was doing wrong, but they were growing apart. Hannah didn’t want to maintain the the friendship anymore. She felt somewhat guilty about wanting to end the friendship. She wanted to make it clear that she wanted the relationship was over and not give a reason that was temporary or that the friend was somehow at fault. Sometimes there isn’t a good reason.
Friendship breakups aren’t necessarily as intimate but they can be just as painful.
Sissel has been the initiator of hard conversations with friends before and 2 of them have not gone very well. The other person has gotten defensive and it has made Sissel wonder if she’s been too quick to question the issues in the friendship. Or if the friendships just weren’t compatible to begin with.
Hannah is trying to get better at accepting criticism. She knows she will get defensive if someone tries to have a hard conversation with her.
Having conversations is hard, ya’ll. The most we can expect from our relationships is that we try to do better each and every day.
And with another sick violin solo, the toxic Throbbers are outta here.
Thank You For Listening!
We are all able-bodied, cisgendered white women. We know our background and experiences only cover a percentage of those around us which is why we want to supplement this with guest speakers, research, and you. If you have opinions and experiences you’d like to share we would love to hear it! If, however, you just want to spew hate at us then we can’t stop you but instead we invite you to suck our collective clitorises. Hater. This podcast also contains mature sexual themes and swearing. No, clitoris isn’t a swear word.
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