Hello beautiful people! Welcome or welcome back to my blog. my name is Sarah Yinka and today I will be discussing eight tips to deal with toxic parents.
If this is something that you relate to, I want you to know that you are not alone! many children and adults have dealt with or dealing with toxic parents or figure in their life including me so do not feel alone and abandoned I am here for you!
Please remember that it will take some time to fully recover from a toxic parent. in fact, a lot of people who had toxic parents are still affected in their late adulthood so please take your time to heal.
Are my parents actually toxic?
Toxic parents tend to have the same type of general traits. Some Traits of toxic parents are :
- Controlling
- manipulative
- emotionally unavailable
- Disregarding of your feelings and needs
- Critical
- Comparing you to others
- Often playing the VicTim
- self-centered
- unapologetic
- blaming
These are just some of the toxic traits that parents may have.
So if you can relate your parents to this, I’m sorry to tell you but you have a toxic parent in your life.
But don’t worry I am here to help! today I will be giving you eight tips on dealing with a toxic parent in your life.
Realize you’re not the issue.
As I mentioned in the list of toxic parent’s traits,
toxic parents can be quite blaming. That’s why you may feel when your parents are upset with you or angry with you they tend to blame you for their life decisions and certain things in life that you were unable to control.
For example, let’s say your parents are alcoholics, when they’re upset they can start to blame you for why they became alcoholics.
For instance, saying that you “stress them out “ or “cause them pain” that’s why they drink. instead of looking inwards and what’s wrong with them to cause them to be alcoholics.
So the first step is to realize that it’s not your fault and you are not the problem.
You are amazing just how you are and they are not happy with themselves so they turn all their problems on you.
but it is your decision to take on their problems so once you realize that you are not the issue….. just let go! it’s not your fight.
Forgive them but don’t forget it.
Now That you have accepted that you’re not the issue, it’s time to forgive them.
I know this is a really hard especially at the moment when they are being extremely difficult but just every time they hurt you just say to yourself “I forgive you”
this is more for yourself than it is for them. once you forgive them you almost as if take off the weights from your shoulders and Spirit.
Once you forgive them, you let them go and all their toxic actions, negative words, and abusive behavior.
But please remember just because you have forgiven them doesn’t mean you have forgotten what they have done to you.
you no longer hold a grudge against them but it doesn’t that mean that you should allow them to repeat what they have done to you before.
As humans, we seek to love and attention, and that connection with one another. sometimes we can allow people to mistreat us just so that we can feel loved and wanted. which brings me onto my next topic.
Stop trying to gain their approval.
This one for me is very important, as children, we look up to our parents. they are our teachers and we want to be like them but sometimes that’s not a good thing.
Especially if you have toxic parents as you can almost never please them no matter what you do they will never be happy with you. this may sound quite harsh but it is the reality.
Also, It can be extremely draining and mentally deteriorating to try and please a toxic parent. not only are they never happy with what you do but you don’t get to live your life for yourself!
you’re living your life for other people which is really not a way to live.
You constantly seeking their approval is giving them the power to decide your self-worth and if you’re enough and constantly seeking Love from a toxic person who probably unable to give that to you anyway is like a bottomless pit so STOP.
Distance yourself.
Distancing yourself is one of the key ways to help with dealing with a toxic parent. if you want to move on in your life you definitely need to distance yourself from your parents as all they are bringing to your life is negativity and sadness.
you don’t want to be associated with that anymore so you have to distance yourself from them so that you can work on yourself.
Yes, I know that there are viewers that are not of age or a Financial situation to be able to distance themselves as in moving out or leaving the family home (including me) which is totally fine.
In that instance, I would recommend just not spending too much time around them. trying to avoid them as a matter possible, maybe as in not hanging out in the living room as often as you would to avoid confrontation or contact for example. Distancing yourself will totally help you be able to work on yourself and find things that you like to focus on.
Set boundaries and enforce them.
Setting boundaries are really important in helping yourself heal from a toxic parent. in a physical and emotional sense, boundaries are essential.
It helps you to be in control of how much you are willing to take from your toxic parents. setting boundaries helps to limit how they treat you.
If you are a teen, the Boundaries do have to be more relaxed as you probably live with them but set it to what makes you comfortable. Every healthy relationship has boundaries to keep everyone in line and it is totally okay to limit contact with your parents.
Keep things to yourself
This point in my opinion aligns with point number five but I felt like it was important that we talk about this so you understand why you should keep certain things to yourself or away from a toxic parent.
as I said before parents are usually our teachers so we should trust them with information right? Well in the case of a toxic parent, maybe not.
They may decide to share certain things that you tell them with other people without your permission or maybe they would use it against you later on. This is why it’s important that we choose carefully what we tell our toxic parents.
Accept the past and move on.
In the steps of healing, there is acceptance. this is really important as we don’t want to carry what has happened to us in the past to our future especially if it’s negative.
of course, we can learn from it but we don’t have to bring it with us. that’s why its important to accept what has happened, what they have done to you, and how they have treated you and move on.
no need to carry the extra weight on in your next steps of healing.
Take care of yourself.
Now that we are moving on from the past, it is really important that you take time and focus on yourself. you should be your number one goal. Make sure that you and your mental state are okay. find something that you like or enjoy hang out with friends, travel, or learn. whatever makes you feel happiest do it because you deserve it! I LOVE YOU!