Dealing with Toxic ☠️

What's up, Cadre fam? Evan here, your resident mental health and addiction therapist, here for another episode of Mental Health Hour. I just made that up. I don't know what we're calling this, but we are going to talk about some mental health addiction topics here. Looks like the beacon just went out alerting everyone we're alive. So hopefully we get some folks popping in. We could have a little fun. I think this is going to be one of those conversations that we could have a lot of fun with, even though it can be fairly heavy.

But, you know, it's all about dealing with folks exhibiting very toxic behaviors. Now, I try not to say purposely toxic people. I'm not a huge fan of labeling, whether it's calling someone a narcissist or sociopath or a toxic person. Now, we all know that is possible for someone to, you know, act in those ways, to have those behaviors to the point where, sure, one could reasonably label someone as toxic, but I find that that dynamic in looking at it that way is ultimately unhelpful, just in a general sense.

So we're going to talk about it more from the frame of how do we deal with folks who are extremely in it. Maybe they're in a toxic place. Maybe they're in active addiction. Maybe they're. Maybe they do have something like a personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, or borderline personality disorder. What up, junk food junkie? Love the name. So maybe they're just in a place where they're exhibiting extremely toxic behaviors. And so I have clients who are in this situation, and I'm writing a book all about communication and dealing with, quote, difficult people.

And this is one that comes up a lot. And so I've been writing a passage. One of the passages in my book is all about this topic about, well, what do you do when you're dealing with someone just at the highest level of exhibiting these behaviors, whether they're narcissistic? I mean, the whole book is essentially about him. But in this topic today, we're going to talk about kind of these extreme cases and just some quick tips of what you can do if you're. If you find yourself in one of these situations.

And a lot of people have. Right. It could have been with, like, a super toxic boss, but, yeah, what about bipolar people? You don't know which person. Yeah. So, you know, again, all these principles will apply. And so I just want to, like, put the disclaimer that just because someone is, like, bipolar, they have a mental health or issue mood disorder that could put them in a place where they are very difficult. Like, someone who's in a manic episode particularly may not be acting in the most rational way.

Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to be super toxic towards you. Like, sometimes people who are manic are, like, kind of funny. You know, they're like, just acting like, you know, like, basically like they drank 15 cups of coffee now. So I think usually someone in, like, a more manic state just kind of. It certainly can change. I mean, it really does change one's personnel, but it kind of accelerates it or decelerates. It's kind of like when someone's drunk. You know, sometimes it just, like, enhances the extremes of their personality, or they kind of have this personality shift, which certainly can happen, but that doesn't necessarily mean.

I wouldn't put that necessarily in the category of, but I would put them in the category of potentially dealing with difficult people in general, which a lot of these things apply. But in this case, I'm talking more about, you know, personality disorder, like narcissistic, like narcissistic traits, extreme manipulation and that kind of thing. So certainly someone in one of those states could. So that's a good. Good point. Good question, good topic. So, I don't know, why don't we just. Why don't we jump into it?

So I'll use one of the examples, and this one has come up a lot in my practice where you see a lot of this kind of thing, and that is in divorce cases. So in a couple different contexts, one, quite often I do assessments, chemical health, addiction assessments, on folks who are in very contentious divorces. Now, the typical situation here is you have a family, typically, who has means, who has a decent amount of money. And the reason they do is because it takes a lot of money to be able to take things this far.

So I always say to these clients, if you're at a point where you got to me, where you wound up here, you have been in an extremely stressful situation and spent a lot of money. And I tell them, my goal is that you only have to do this assessment once, that it brings you one step closer to finalizing your divorce. Because usually these things have been going on for years. Now, in order for a divorce to go on for years, there's typically at least one party, if not both, who are acting unreasonably, who are not willing to compromise, who are not willing to accept a middle ground of what is reasonable, again, in my book.

And here I talk a lot about what is reasonable, reasonable behavior, right? So you think of reason, which is, like, logical, but also, like, in the context of our culture and our social norms, right? So, for example, personality disorder, like, if you look at the actual definition of it, it is someone who is exhibiting behaviors that are problematic, right, that are consequential for themselves, others, within the context of their culture. So it's a pattern of extremes. So if someone is in a divorce for years, quite often one or both people is acting in these extreme ways where they can accept a situation where it's like, okay, by law, we split half our stuff and have, you know, some for, you know, as long as every.

There's not a parent that's completely unable to take care of their kid, you know, for mental health, addiction reasons, you know, reasonably split the time and responsibilities and costs, right? So two, like, rational, reasonable people would be able to do that more easily. Now, someone who's been in a long divorce may watch us and be offended, but probably not because they're probably just thinking, well, that's my partner, and maybe that may be the case, right? Because both parties think the other one's being unreasonable, but typically one a little bit more than the other.

Now, I haven't. So I see this quite a bit. Luckily, I'm not in a place where I'm, like, taking too many sides. However, sometimes I will do the assessment for both of them, which typically I won't do in these cases. I will just to make sure that, you know, I'm being impartial and you're not getting an assessment from someone else, that it's kind of being looked at through the same lens. Of course, I could be accused of, oh, well, you're being unfair to me, and I have no reason to do that. So that's one of the contexts.

And then the other is, like, in therapy. So I have a client. I've had clients who go through divorces with folks, folks who exhibit very narcissistic traits. So that comes up a lot in the family law system. So you could ask a lot of lawyers who are dealing with child custody mediators, custody evaluators. I mean, all of them come across folks exhibiting narcissistic behaviors quite a bit. Now, we all have a general conception of what narcissistic behaviors are, but it's essentially, you know, folks who basically think extremely highly of themselves, regardless of what their actual effort achievements are.

Someone who's like, I should be the CEO of my company, but don't put in the requisite work. And a lot of times, that comes with, like, exploiting others, being manipulative, superficial. A lot of times, folks who have narcissism are very attractive. They're very charming, they're very intelligent quite often and draw people in. But then after a while, that toxicity comes out. And a lot of times, for folks, it is a defense mechanism. A lot of times, personality disorders come from trauma. There is a genetic component as well, but they come from trauma.

So again, I don't want to, like, stigmatize them because I feel like we do that too much. But sometimes we just got to call a spade a spade where someone may actually have that personality disorder or exhibiting enough of the symptoms where it's. It can be a real problem. And so if you're someone who's been in a relationship, or we'll just call it a toxic relationship, you know how hard that could be. And a lot of times, these relationships have an element of abuse as well, and, you know, emotional, physical abuse.

So we're talking about some, like, pretty heavy stuff and some heavy situations. And so in this live stream, I'm going to be talking about, what are some tips when you are in those extreme situations? Because, you know, in my book, where I talk about basically a formula for communication style of dealing with folks who are, you know, more difficult, more extreme, toxic, whatever. And there's other benefits to just effective communication that I teach. And, you know, those situations, I believe, apply to everything.

However, in these situations, there are some different considerations you need to make and maybe taking a bit of a different approach than I would for 95% of situations when you're dealing with someone toxic. So the junk food junkie says, people who think everything is about them and their crap doesn't stink. Exactly. I mean, yeah, and a way that narcissistic approach is like, again, just this thinking very highly of yourself, a very self centeredness and literally believing, having this really deep belief that, like, you cannot be wrong, or at the very least, just like we all have that bias to think that we're right and our views and beliefs are correct and others aren't.

But it's to a very extreme level. Right? It's like that to an extreme. And that's why a lot of these divorce cases drag on, because the person is literally, like, despite how wild it may be or how deviated it may be from the norm of what they believe is fair, they literally cannot understand or believe that whatever that element of actual fairness is, is the case. Like they think that they deserve. That's another big trait is they believe they deserve special treatment, that they're special, that they're superior to others, and therefore, you know, it creates quite a mess.

And a lot of times these folks would be, like, very successful. You see some of these traits in higher level professions, lawyers, surgeons, that kind of thing. It's a little bit more of a sociopathy thing, which is like interconnected lack of empathy. So let's talk about some tips and some concepts. I pulled this up from my book just to give me a little inspiration. So in these situations, I think a good way of looking at it is when you're dealing with super toxic, they're throwing a lot of fire your way, right?

That's kind of their fighting style is using fire. And how do we combat fire? Is it with more fire? No, it's with water. So taking a cool, collected approach, and that's really difficult because someone who is toxic, manipulative, they will know how to push your buttons, especially if they know you well. They've actually trained you to. They've trained you to respond in a way that is favorable to them. And they do that with positive praise. They do that with negative reinforcement, punishment. They behaviorally modify you and have found ways to get their way.

It's kind of like your dog, right? How dogs are very instinctual creatures, and they kind of, they kind of know how to manipulate us, you know, to get what they want, right? It's just we all do it to a certain degree, but, you know, running on instinct, right? It's like, are we training ourselves? Are we training the dog, or is the dog training us kind of thing? So, so that's something to keep in mind, is that the. It favors the toxic individual to keep you off balance, to keep you in an emotional state, so that you react on instinct, so that you respond to their instinct, to their manipulation, to their anger, to their punishment.

Whatever they do to you, it benefits them, right? To make you feel guilty, sad, guilty, confused, doubt yourself, even angry, even making you angry works to their advantage because they could use that fuel against you. And when you're angry, you're about 30% less intelligent when you're in a heightened emotional state, because you are in a deeper part of your brain versus using the more prefrontal thinking part of your brain that needs to be in a cool space to operate. So when you're dealing with a toxic individual, it requires a lot of higher level thinking, and this becomes your advantage.

So the thing is, despite how far some of these folks are willing to go, you know, they're willing to fight with the gloves off. They don't pull punches. They don't have this. They're not operating on the same level of ethics, of fairness. And that makes it hard, like, okay, well, how do I combat this guy spitting fire at me? How do I deal with that? Because, I mean, they're doing every trick. Now, what I tell folks is actually, this works to their disadvantage. So when you're dealing with someone like this, they're actually, if you approach a situation in a more effective way, they are at a disadvantage.

Well, how could that be? Well, when somebody is willing to act in extreme measures, or if someone is, they have such a compulsion to act in a way where they're getting their ego fed, or they have an inability to believe that they can be wrong, essentially, they're not living in reality. And there are consequences for when you don't live in reality. So when someone's exhibiting extremes. So basically, that person has this need to have their ego fed to be shown that they're right to get their way.

And when they don't get that, they act in irrational ways. So again, they're willing to take the gloves off, but it's also highly irrational. And so when they're irrational, they don't always make the best decisions. And that's something that you could use to your advantage. You can see in this language I'm talking, this really adversarial terms. And in the communication style I teach, I can't stress enough that you don't want to be in that situation. But again, this is like the tip of the spear.

This is dealing with extreme situations. And sometimes we're not fighting fire with fire. We're still going to act in an ethical way. We may take the gloves off a little bit, but we're doing so with water. We're cooling the situation down. We're approaching it with a cool, calm, collected approach. So that's kind of my first piece of advice. Now the next revolves around logic. So let's say I'm in a divorce, and we'll just use that as the example, because that's what inspired me to bring this up, is all these cases I'm having to work with folks on.

Now, one of the most important things to know in a situation like, let's say, with a divorce, when you're trying to divorce someone who is incapable of admitting they're wrong, or they just keep fighting, fighting, fighting to try to get things they don't deserve, or they're not legally entitled to, and they're acting irrationally. What you have to know, you have to sit down. I mean, and this is where getting good, good legal counsel is important. Or even getting, like, some good advice from friends or family members, people who are able to help you see the situation more clearly when you are emotionally activated.

And so one of the hardest things would be if you, like, can't afford legal counsel, but at the same time, if your spouse can. Right. And you're married, a lot of times people don't realize the money that they are entitled to, you know, that they are immediately entitled to half of that. So, I mean, a lot of times their spouse can convince them that all this is my money and da da da da da. Right. So sometimes when people are in that situation, right, so in order to be in, like, a super contentious divorce, you tend to have to have money, and it's coming from somewhere.

Sometimes, you know, someone, maybe the spouse doesn't have a lot of money, but they're getting it from their parents. That's enough story. Anyway, I'm kind of getting in the weeds a little bit, but I bring that all up because what's important to know is your leverage. Now in this situation with divorce, what's nice is that you have a court system. You have certain rights and you have certain, you know, yes. You have certain rights that you are entitled to. And if that person does not acknowledge that, that will work to their disadvantage.

And basically that will make them look really bad at court. If you're fighting for something reasonable and they're, you know, and they're not, that's, you know, that's one way it looks bad on them. So if you're coming into this situation legally with a cool head, what I see happen with folks who are exhibiting these toxic traits is they end up shooting themselves in, in the foot. Because when you start holding boundaries, which will be the next kind of tip, when you start holding boundaries with them, it completely dysregulates them.

When you don't feed in to their toxic, to what they draw you into, that training they've done with you, it really does dysregulate them, and it can become actually a safety thing that you sometimes have to be careful of if that person knowing what that person. Person is capable of. But let's see. Junk food junkie says those types of people are hard to deal with. True. My experience learn just stand there and say nothing and show no reaction. Yes. That's like taking a water approach, right? You're not feeding in.

That could be dysregulating for them. But the more you do that, you're reversing that training. It gets them more than words or reaction. Yeah. So sometimes people call it, like, gray rocking or something where, like, with someone who's narcissistic, you just, like, become so boring that they just lose interest. But Luke. So anyway, yeah, so knowing your leverage, knowing what your rights are, and also knowing how to, what you're going to do when a certain situation comes up, because you know, if you know this person well, you know how they're going to react.

So before going into an interaction, whether it's a divorce mediation or having to have a conversation with them about a child custody issue or whatever the other example would be, knowing what your rights are. Like, for example, if you have, like, a toxic boss who's like, making you work all these, like, overtime hours or something like that, or they're violating labor laws. So kind of like knowing what your rights are so you can't. So basically, so they can't take advantage of you and that you're able to set a boundary there and be able to calmly explain why you're not going to be doing something and why.

Now, that logic may not always prevail, but you're still coming in with a cool approach. And at the end of the day, if they want to push it really far, I always say if you handle this in a cool, calm, conscious, strategic manner, by the time it gets to the court, per se, they look horrible. And that's often what happens is the judge eventually just kind of smacks the gavel and says, sorry, you know, you're not getting what you want. And often, if the person handles the situation well, right, that other individual, they may have, like, an order of protection, or there may be an order in place where that person cannot bug you, because what happens a lot of times is they wear you down on persistence.

They keep nagging you, texting you, and eventually, again, you're trained to give in. And when you change the approach, they're going to turn it up to ten. But when you use the behavioral approach of extinction, which is kind of ignoring or not reinforcing that behavior, eventually that behavior will go down and go away when they do not get their way now. So sometimes that works. And hopefully it doesn't have to get to the point of being in front of a judge or legal or the police or something like that, but often it does.

So knowing how you're going to approach a situation, having a plan ahead, not just jumping in with a toxic person and trying to, like, figure out how you're going to react as you go. But knowing, what am I going to say when this comes up? What am I going to say when they. Because, you know, a lot of times that's another disadvantage of these folks is they're highly predictable. Again, they're running on instinct. They're running on emotion. They're not thinking things through. Just like your puppy is good at manipulating you.

So are they right. But they're not really thinking about it. Sometimes maybe they are cold and calculated, but again, their disadvantage is they're willing to go to these extremes that can get them in trouble. That they are. They cross lines. They do things that are immoral, unethical, even illegal, because they need to feed that sense of satisfaction, feed their ego. Right. That's their biggest downfall. Or if you're dealing with someone, let's say, who is like, in a severe addiction, right. That works.

You know, even though they're great at creating chaos and they could dodge you, let's say they need to go to treatment or something, and they're just like, not in a great place. Their downfall is that they need that drug, they need that substance to survive in their own mind. So they're willing to make poor decisions that put them in a vulnerable place because they need to get that drug. So a lot of times when you take that cool approach, when you're not only cool, but you're also patient, then that's going to work.

To your advantage is patience and time and being able to have a plan and stick with it. And then the last, I think, is the last, like, main suggestion would be setting boundaries. So deciding, well, what are certain lines that I'm not willing to. To cross? Let's say it's in a divorce, saying, okay, I'm not willing to give up more than 50% of custody or, you know, I'm willing to give a little bit on, you know, I'm willing to give a little bit on alimony or this or that. Right. This is just an example, but what am I willing to give on and what am I not?

And making sure that you are advocating for yourself, because a lot of times, too, like some of my clients who've been through trauma and these abusive relationships, they're willing to just give, give it all away so they don't have to deal with the person. They're saying, well, you know, they'll tell me, well, I don't need out. You know, I don't want the alimony, I don't want the house, anything. I just want this to be done. Okay, I get that. The only problem is that puts you in a vulnerable position for, like, the rest of your life.

Right. Like, I have a client, right. Who spent all this time in sacrifice raising the kids. They didn't invest in their career in the same way their husband did. Now they're going to be walking out of a situation where he has a far better job with at least more income and. Right. So then she's willing to sign it all away just to not deal with him. He gets his way. He thinks that's what he's entitled to. Now, the problem with doing that, though, and sometimes it's even to the point where they're like, I don't.

I don't think I even deserve this, right? They've been so beaten down by life, maybe not even just by the partner, that they're like, I don't even deserve this. They're willing to sign it away. And I try to work with them to not do that and to stay in it and fight because if they sign it all away, right, that may affect them for the next 20 years or something, right. Because now they're struggling financially. They don't have as great a place to live. They can't support their kids in the same way because they just signed it away to, you know, bury their head in the sand and not have to deal with it versus, you know, approach it in a strategic way, fight it out, sit through the fire, because they're throwing fire.

And their hope is that you're not willing to handle the heat. But again, there are ways to go in it with a cool way to protect yourself, to have boundaries and stick with it. Right. So, for example, like in these situations, like I said, one of the tactics is just to bombard you and annoy you and text you and question you, and you don't have to give in to that, right. Sometimes you feel like you do because it may shut them up temporarily or whatever, but it really just makes the problem. It's like scratching a mosquito bite.

It's like saying, well, I need to respond. Otherwise they just keep at it. But then the problem is you scratch the mosquito bite. Maybe it feels better for a sec, but then it grows. Then you got to scratch it even harder, and then it just keeps growing. So eventually, to find a way to not scratch the mosquito bite, and instead of scratching it, you use Benadryl. Right. To soothe it in a healthier way until it starts to go away. And that's where the extinction is. I'm not giving in. I'm not scratching it anymore.

But it doesn't work to just stop scratching it completely. If you're able to handle it, yeah, it'll still go away. But, you know, sometimes you need a little Benadryl to make life easier, to take a more effective approach. So setting boundaries to saying, like, you don't have. Have to always give in. You don't have to text them back. You to could say, you know, hey, I'm, you know, given the nature of the conversation, I don't feel it's productive right now, and I'm not going to engage until we can have a more productive conversation.

Fire, fire, fire, fire. Da da da da. You do this, you know, and they just, like, say these, like, horrible things to draw you back in or make you feel guilty, but you're able to just shut your phone off or ignore it, and you do it again, and you do it again until they're willing to have that productive conversation. Or you have these text records of them saying this. And again, that's where they lose control. And they may say something where they cross a line where they may be threatening, and then you have it all documented.

That's taking the cool approach, because, again, this comes to bite them in the a** if it ever goes to court or something, because they see your text records of you being cool and collected and rational, and they're acting crazy. And that's when the judge eventually says, you know what? As part of the divorce decree, you are not able to even text them about anything. They have these apps now where, you know, it's all recorded, documented, where it's all about just stuff with the kids, and everything is just signed in writing, and they don't have any recourse.

Right. So eventually, you know, they want to pick on you, but, you know, when they start to pick on someone their own size, like a federal. Not federal, but a judge, they typically don't do well. And the judges don't really appreciate when you start to exhibit those behaviors towards them. They crack the hammer and you're kind of screwed. So time, patience, boundaries, and you gotta, you know, and then the disclaimer I put in here is, you got to stay safe as well. So, I mean, if, you know, you got to be careful doing some of these things, if the person is, you know, could be a threat.

So sometimes you have to take a different approach that I would regard as a little bit more. I wouldn't call it unethical at this point, because when your safety is at risk, but sometimes, again, by. By doing these techniques, these water based techniques, let's call them. It really dysregulates them because you're changing a dynamic. Just like with a dog. If you hadn't trained them and you allow them on the couch or you give them human food, when you stop doing it, then maybe they'll just keep barking and barking and barking and barking, or they want to be in your bed, or these bad habits over time, when you change that, it's going to disregulate them.

Oh, I know the past. When I bark, then my human gives in. So that individual may just keep barking, barking. You have to know that it's coming and you have to have a strategy for it. But that may entail, you know, it's like, what if that dog, when you do it, is going to bite you? You may have to handle it in a different way to stay safe. Like, so for example, I, sometimes I can't look at a specific situation, but you know, to say, all right, maybe you have to give in, but, like, in a pretend way to pacify them.

Like kind of lie, right? Like, you may have to lie to them and say, oh, yeah, okay, that's fine. Yep, you're right. You know, you have to give in just to pacify them enough until you could stay safe. Like getting an order of protection, moving away, and following through with those boundaries and getting legal involvement. But you may have to lie to them a little bit versus setting, like, healthy boundaries until you're able to do that. So I say here, when I have clients in these predicaments, I don't recommend they follow the formula.

I present a formula for dealing with these situations in the same way, because safety is the number one priority. The goals of this conscious communication approach is protecting your basic needs at all costs. Maybe it's not violence, but what if they threatened to take away your housing or behaviors that put your kids at risk? Every escalated situation is different and requires a different approach. And in these challenging places, the gloves need. May need to come off, right? Their gloves are already off for them, but you may need to, you know, acting by any means necessary does not necessarily mean meaning fighting to escape.

But I've had clients in these abusive situations. They need to lie. They need to pretend everything is okay to reach a point where they can leave unharmed, whether it is manipulation, deceit, or otherwise unethical strategy. Sometimes these dark arts, which I call them, are warranted when someone compromises your well being for their selfish gain. So those are, like, the only situations that I'll ever recommend using the dark arts of communication. And like persuasion or you know, whatever you want to call it, influence.

You know, I usually say that, you know, when using positive, more positive, healthy, ethical communication, we're not trying to control someone else's behavior, manipulate them, get them to do what we want. We're trying to have a healthy influence because that's on you. That's up to you. You to be sure you're acting in a moral, ethical way. You know, like, for example, like, I need to be really sure that, you know, a loved one, like, really doesn't, you know, if they're, like, doing heroin, like, that's not good, that's not safe.

I need to be able to have these strategies to try to bring upon a healthy influence for that person to change. I don't want to go around changing, controlling people, but I need to be very sure that the situation warrants it and that I'm being reasonable and fair in that interaction with the other person. Just like if we're getting divorced, right, you could use healthy and effective communication in a negative way to try to get your way. Even if it is like, a healthy ish, ethical approach to communication, you may be using it to get unethical gains, which is not okay.

So you have to really check in with yourself about that or check in with others to get their opinion. Hey, am I being unreasonable here? Am I being unfair? And I think that's a really good way of going about it, too. So, anyway, I really love this topic. I've put a lot of thought into it and had a lot of these situations where I may have to advise clients on how to navigate these waters. And so I tried to put this all down and organized approach. So eventually, when I get this book kicked out, I'll let you all know, and if you're interested in these topics.

But, yeah, I thought it'd be fun to talk about the, again, the tip of the spear and the most extreme cases of having to deal with someone who's exhibiting the most toxic of behavior. So, anyway, folks, I love you. It's good checking in, and we'll see you again next week at this time. Cheers.