The summer season is upon us, now, in the Northeast.  That means trips up to Poconos on a more regular basis and that means hours in the car to talk.  I am amazed at how much Trish and I always seem to find to talk about.  It’s not like we never have time to talk.  We are almost always together.  But get us in the car and amazing conversations ensue.  This, of course, is one of the reasons I love her.  But I digress.  A recent trip up to Lake Wallenpaupack gave us one of those “let’s see what comes up” conversation moments and we had a really interesting discussion around toxic people.  So, more than usual, Trish is my co-author on this essay.  Celebrate or blame her, equally.

Now, before we go any further, hear this, Dear Reader:  YOU ARE NOT IN THIS ESSAY IN ANY WAY!  It is natural to see yourself in things you read but I want all my friends and family to know that we have gone to GREAT PAINS to not use anyone we know as an example in this essay.  Just STOP IT.  You are not in here!  If anyone is used as an example in this essay, it’s me.  And we’ll get to that in a moment. If you happen to see something of yourself in this essay—since reading and thinking are a good way to hold up the mirror—then take this to heart:  truly toxic people rarely see themselves as toxic.

It would seem simple enough to begin by defining what I mean as “toxic person,” but that has turned out to be one of the most difficult parts of this discussion.  In general, Trish and I have defined a “toxic person” as someone who sucks the air out the room.  Not helpful?  A toxic person is someone who drains your energy.  Also not helpful?  A toxic person is someone who, when you see their name on caller ID, inspires you to groan and debate whether or not to pick up the phone.  I think you see where I’m going here.  It’s like the definition of porn:  you know it when you see it, but it’s hard to give a precise definition.

I will use myself as an example.  I look back to when I was in college.  I was a hormonal teenager, away from home for the first time, struggling mightily with understanding and coming to grips with my sexuality.  I knew I was gay.  I’d known since I was, what, 5 years old?  But in the 60’s, ‘70s, and even the ‘80s when I was in college, this was not a good thing.  Our culture taught me that what I felt was wrong and evil and must be purged.  I hated and feared this side of me.  I did my best to try and change it (fortunately, unsuccessfully).  I embodied angst and moodiness and unpredictability and I cried a lot.  A LOT.  I send a deep bow of gratitude to my dearest college friends who stuck by me through all of this.  I cringe, now, thinking about how toxic I must have been.  And the worst part of it was that I never (rarely?) explained WHY I was struggling so much since my deepest fear was coming out!  Thank goodness they did not abandon me or purge me from their lives.

I say that because I have gotten to a point where I have slowly purged toxic people from my own life as a self-protection mechanism.  This is not uncommon and there is much popular literature on the need to do so.  Toxic people drain your energy.  They bring you down.  You run the risk of spiraling right alongside them.  Let them go, the common wisdom says!  But.  But where is that line between self-preservation and selfishness?  When do you cross over from compassion for others to compassion for yourself?  This is where I hold up Trish and her family as models.  She and her siblings are some of the most compassionate people I know.  (This is the part of the essay she did not co-write and I’m guessing there will be battles during the editing process to see what remains in the final post.)  Each one of the four siblings has this amazing ability to talk with anyone, anywhere, anytime and make them feel like they are the most important person in the room.  I know it comes from their parents.  I never met their father, but the stories they tell (and, wow, can this family tell stories!) demonstrate his compassion.  And I had the extraordinary fortune to know their mother well, so I know for sure her influence.  There are people in this family’s orbit whom many would consider toxic, yet they continue to keep them close without falling into the spiral.  I think they are able to do this because they come from a place of love.  When you come from a place of love, there is always love to share.

There need to be limits to this compassion, and this is what Trish and I talked a lot about on the car ride.  We both get fed up when someone’s toxicity is somewhat self-imposed—by choices they have made, by lack of personal accountability, by lack of personal awareness.  Somewhat tied to this is the time arc of toxicity.  Is this person going through a defined tough time or does this toxicity just seem to be a component of who they are?  Let’s be honest, we all know people who seem to thrive on negativity.  And we all know people who thrive on trying to “fix” people in chaos, so they don’t see it as toxic. 

I still don’t have a good answer to my basic question of when I am smartly distancing myself from someone who is toxic and when I am being selfish and lacking in compassion.  I thought writing this essay would help me work that out, but it has taken me to totally different places than I thought it would.  There are no hard and fast rules, here, as with most of life.  Sometimes I have greater capacity for compassion than at other times.  Sometimes, I fear getting involved.  I can fear that toxicity may be contagious.  I guess where I need to leave things is with this thought:  Life is a series of choices.  Choose love and compassion as often as you can, and remember when others choose compassion for you.