3 signs you might be a toxic person, from a therapist who realized she had harmful behaviors she needed to change
Heather Ekstrom
- Jaime Mahler, a licensed therapist, said she realized she had "toxic" behavior.
- Seeing healthier relationships as an adult, Mahler decided to change her friendships and communication style.
- She shared the signs that she was contributing to her toxic relationships, and how she changed.
Jaime Mahler didn't realize she was a pretty toxic person until she saw her partner's family spend time together.
"I genuinely remember thinking, This isn't fake? You actually care and treat each other like this?" Mahler told Insider.
They laughed, gave sincere compliments to her and others, and seemed to be genuinely generous. She was positive they were putting on an act — Mahler's family only did that when they had company, she said.
It forced Mahler — who is now a licensed therapist — to reflect on the toxic behaviors she grew up with, and continued to act out herself. Three years later, she started graduate school for therapy and gained an even greater understanding about the types of relationships she wanted to cultivate, and the ones she wanted to leave behind.
"I started noticing that the ways I was interacting with people were not eliciting anything fruitful or healthy in my life," Mahler said. She thought these behaviors, like being passive aggressive and gossipy, were normal because nearly everyone else in her life was acting the same way, she said.
Mahler now uses her podcast "Unlearned" and her Instagram account to educate about these unhealthy patterns. She wrote the upcoming book "Toxic Relationship Recovery: Your Guide to Identifying Toxic Partners, Leaving Unhealthy Dynamics, and Healing Emotional Wounds after a Breakup," out on September 5, to help people identify their maladaptive behaviors and change them.
"The word 'toxic' isn't meant to be a weapon. It's meant to be an awareness," Mahler told Insider.
She shared the three signs that, in hindsight, she was being toxic.
Passive aggressiveness
Mahler said that growing up, her family would make passive-aggressive comments towards each other. She assumed that was a normal way people solved their problems or got their emotional needs met, she told Insider.
She used to use the same strategy in romantic relationships. When she wanted her partner to show affection by getting her a glass of water, for example, she would get "huffy" and say something like, "My God, it would be so nice to not be thirsty right now. Like, it would be so great if someone just paid attention to their partner's needs," Mahler said.
She said that she's since learned being direct in asking for your needs to be met is a healthier approach.
Seeking constant validation from partners
Mahler said that she also placed unfair expectations on her romantic partners to raise her self-worth through compliments and words of affirmation.
If she was struggling with a negative view of her own body, for example, she'd expect her partner to pull her out of her low confidence. But it never did, so she'd end up getting upset at her partner, she said.
She's since learned that she was projecting her own wounds, which had nothing to do with her partner, onto them and automatically setting their connection up for failure.
Seeking constant validation isn't the same thing as asking for extra support on a particularly difficult day, Mahler said. She learned that she needed to tend to her insecurities herself, so she worked with a therapist to change her codependent tendencies.
Mahler said that she pinpointed how different types of behaviors, from herself and others, made her feel. If an interaction made her doubt herself or feel shame, she focused on changing her own behavior to feel better.
Mahler said that she can now can find a balance between taking care of herself and relying on others for support when it feels helpful and empowering.
"The purpose of a relationship isn't to use each other. It's to honor and celebrate each other," Mahler said.
Staying in unfulfilling friendships
When Mahler reflected on the relationships in her life, she realized that many of her friendships left her feeling drained and unfulfilled.
They often focused on gossiping about others, and had a lack of boundaries, resulting in arguments. If, for example, one friend in her group would spend one-on-one time with another, a third friend would bring up how they weren't invited, as if to suggest the other two friends were mistreating her.
In reality, the third friend likely felt left out and wanted to feel control, Mahler said, but that didn't make her behavior OK.
To remedy this, Mahler was honest with herself about the friends whose expectations she wanted to, and could, meet. If their abilities and expectations didn't align, Mahler decided they just weren't good as friends, instead of becoming resentful.