Dear flyby:

Welcome back!

As to your suggestion: “stop trying to isolate yourself in a world of positivity and only positive people”- one would be alone, not even in one own company. Who is positive all the time? (And it is an unreasonable pressure to put on oneself, to say and act positive at all times)

You wrote: ” If someone is ‘toxic’, maybe really think about what that means”- I agree: define what is “toxic”. It is okay and reasonable that any person will be negative at times, pessimistic, sad. No emotions should be rejected as bad or negative and a person should not pretend to not have these feelings. All feelings have valid messages, all are needed, all therefore are positive.

“Toxic” means poisonous, harmful. If a friend is sad and that makes me feel sad too, that wouldn’t be a reason for me to leave that person, to cut contact. It would be a reason for me to comfort the person, to spend more time with the person. But if the person is sad and abusive (aka toxic) and yells at me, blaming me for what I am not responsible for, letting off steam that way, then that is a different story.

Loyalty to a person who harms you is self defeating, and a disloyalty to yourself. Loyalty to a person who is loving and respectful of you and yet sad, depressed, anxious is admirable. In the latter case, I would be compassionate to the person best I can and at the same time take the breaks I need so to not exhaust myself. Always care for yourself first.

anita