Should You Cut Out Toxic Family Members from Your Life?
Poison is still poison, even when you recognize the bottle!
Giving relationship advice about how to deal with dysfunctional family behavior can be a tricky situation. On the one hand, the person seeking advice is anxious to hear your opinion about what they should do about family related issues.
But once you start making valid points about their complicated family history, you might find the person suddenly getting on the defensive. Why?
Because everyone wants to make a life changing move, and stop dealing with the toxic people in their lives, so they can become a better person.
But no one wants to face the fact that certain family members may be like poison in their lives.
If you’re prepared to address the questions honestly, allow me to share some advice about whether or not you should cut toxic family members out of your life.
Toxic Equals Poison
It’s easy to rationalize with ourselves about why we don’t want to consider the thought of cutting family members out of our lives.
After all, they’re not just toxic people, they’re our families; our brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and yes, sometimes even our mothers and fathers are just as toxic, or more so. But does that make them any less deadly?
Okay, before you get ready to click away, “deadly” might have been a strong word, but in some instances, toxic people — even family members — really are deadly, in a literal sense.
Toxic people have a way of disrupting our normal mental development. They get in our heads and make us think and behave in a way that we might not ordinarily act or react.
For a person who may already be dealing with mental health issues, the last thing they need is someone tearing them down and messing them up any more than they already are.
Yes, it’s a terrible shame when a family member has been identified as toxic, but toxic is poison, and poison is dangerous. It doesn’t matter that they happen to have the same blood running through their veins as you do.
Ask yourself this question:
Does my family member exhibit the same type of behavior that is used to describe and identify a toxic friend?
If you look at the situation honestly, and not through rose-colored glasses, you just may find that it is necessary to start eliminating some people from your life.
This is definitely no easy task, and not something you can typically accomplish in one day. As one of my other story’s about toxic friends brings out, “Toxic friends are like bad drugs.”
Just like any drug habit, you can’t be expected to kick it overnight. But if you’re determined to make a life change for the better, then brace yourself and prepare to do what is necessary to remove toxic people from your life, even when they happen to be toxic family members.
Final Thoughts
From my personal experiences, I’ve found that sometimes guilt enters the picture when you think about letting go of toxic people, no matter who they are.
Usually, when we have a history with a person, it makes it harder to say goodbye to the past, especially because there may have been some good memories, and some times that you actually feel grateful to the person (or persons).
But no matter who they are, if they display toxic behavior that continues to tear you down, you need to let them go.
Here are some things to remind yourself:
- You don’t have to be feel obligated to remain in an unhappy toxic family relationship.
- Accepting someone’s bad behavior and treating you poorly should NOT become your norm. There is nothing normal about it.
- You have the power and the authority over yourself, to stop allowing people to treat you in a toxic way, even if they’re family members and people you really love.
Dear Readers:
Thank you for allowing me to share with you. Some of you may simply want to be entertained with an interesting or amusing story. Others maybe seek self-awareness, and reliable advice about family and relationships.
Either way, whatever the case; my stories and personal essays are written to provide valuable life lessons that I’ve learned myself — the hard way — and hopefully help you find ways to avoid similar problems in your everyday life.
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