Are They Really Toxic?

Several of my friends are survivors of abuse.  Some were upper-class children who were raped at boarding-school, or beaten by their parents in affluent homes which few social workers would think of inspecting.  Others were working-class children who were neglected as babies, taken into ‘care’ and then ill-treated by foster carers or orphanage staff.  A few have managed, as adults, to forgive their parents and build some kind of relationship with them.  Others have regretfully concluded that, for their own survival, they have to cut off links with their family.

Some of my friends feel that they have been abused in situations that were less clear-cut.  This often happens in the context of friendships or religious groups, and sometimes quite accidentally.  A is worried about B’s self-defeating behaviour and posts her a message warning of its likely consequences; B interprets the message as a threat from A, and refuses to speak to her again.  In a large town, churchgoers who have been hurt by several members of their congregation may switch to a different church.  In a village with only one church, they may just give up church.

Personally, I do not think I have ever been intentionally abused by any adult except myself.  As a child, I was certainly bullied by other children, and by the time we grew up and they lost interest in bullying me, I had taught myself to expect to be a victim.  But the adults with whom I associate my most anguished moments were not monsters.  They were normal people who occasionally made tactless remarks which I insisted on taking much more seriously than they had intended.

The media often warn us to identify and avoid ‘toxic’ people, as they are clearly ‘narcissists’ or ‘personality disordered’.  Although the journalists admit that these are often very lonely and insecure people, they imply that the correct treatment is for them to be ostracised by everyone except trained psychiatrists.  It isn’t clear how these unfortunate people, if their only social contact is an hour’s session with a therapist once a week (if they are lucky enough to get that) can be rehabilitated.

I have a couple of relationships with people I can seldom meet without our quarrelling and both going off feeling hurt or upset.  It is tempting to conclude that they are toxic to me, and frightening to think that perhaps I am the one who is toxic.  A neutral answer would be that we are simply incompatible.  But I suspect that I simply haven’t learnt the right way to be with them.

Both these people are quite similar to me.  They are intelligent and articulate, highly sensitive and conscientious perfectionists, and frustrated at the failures in their lives.  Perhaps this is why I judge them too harshly, because I expect them to know when they’re hurting my feelings.  If someone with low intelligence sends me a picture of his penis, I can simply accept that he doesn’t know any better, and ask him not to do it again.

By contrast, I expect intelligent people to listen to me and understand me, even though I don’t listen to them or understand them.  I expect them to mean every word they say, even when I myself am ranting a lot of paranoid nonsense because I want them to talk me out of it.  I ignore the fact that intelligent people can be autistic or emotionally damaged or (like me) both.

In paranoid moments, I may wonder if they want me to commit suicide.  Less violently, I could just cut off contact with these friends, and spend all my time with people who make me feel good.  

But rationally, I know that killing myself would devastate the people who love me even if they can’t get on with me, and that terminating our friendship would just leave them feeling hurt and confused.

Alternatively, I can try to learn how to rebuild damaged friendships.  I can try to stop dominating every conversation with going on about my problems, and listen to the other person talking about his or her own interests.  I can try to find things we enjoy doing together, like country walking or watching Tom and Jerry cartoons, or interests we can chat about, like gardening or science fiction.

I can also try applying this to my relationship with myself, and my relationship with God.  I don’t hate my friends or want them to die, but I do sometimes respond to stress by cursing myself, telling myself that God hates me, and taunting myself to commit suicide.  What if instead, I tried to comfort and reassure myself, the way I would (I hope) treat a friend who was suffering?

My attitude to God is coloured by my depression, to the point where I identify Jesus with depression itself.  Because I hate myself, I misinterpret the Bible as teaching that Jesus hates me.  Because I expect to fail at everything, on the eve of starting a new job I imagine Jesus telling me, ‘You’re just an unworthy servant.  You can’t do any good,’ and so I mess up the job, get sacked, and imagine that Jesus will send me to hell for not helping the people I was supposed to be caring for in the job I’ve lost.

As plenty of people have pointed out, Jesus’s message wasn’t simply, ‘Be nice to each other,’ or the Romans wouldn’t have bothered to crucify him.  All the same, being nice to other people – and to myself – is probably the right thing for me to do about 95% of the time.  Jesus challenged those who were self-righteous and arrogant, but that doesn’t mean that he always wants me to be a weeping, despairing, quivering wreck.  

If I allowed myself to trust that Jesus might not be a hate-preacher who threatens me with hellfire, but the ‘Lord of all hopefulness’ who loves us and works in our lives, I might actually be open to developing spiritually.