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30 Idealized Behaviors That Are Actually Toxic Traits, Pointed Out By TikTok Users
Have you ever found yourself in a situation where someone was acting inappropriate, but no one besides you didn’t seem to notice? And you didn’t say anything just because you felt as if it would just make everything worse? This TikTok user @nayaaford asked her followers to share what is something that people find normal or even idealised when it is an example of toxic behaviour. In her video that has 49.6k likes and almost 3.5k comments, she pointed out that one of the examples of toxic behaviour is wanting a “significant other” who is unfriendly and even mean to other people just because this would mean that they are not going to cheat.
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Minimizing your own experience by saying “others have it way worse than you”. No. My feelings are valid regardless of how worse it could be.
There's a balance here, though; you need to feel like your feelings are valid, but you also need perspective. too much either way is bad.
It encouraged more people to share their examples of toxic behaviour in the comment section: overprotected partners who end up being control freaks, covering early abuse signs with “if someone is mean to you, it means they like you”, or blaming one’s bad behaviours or lack of responsibility to their zodiac sign. This endless list shows some ridiculous as well as serious problems that society faces but not really takes into consideration, instead they are simply normalised.
Telling little girls "if hes being mean to you it means he likes you"... no.. just no
Giving men glory for doing all the normal things women do..ie: cleaning, cooking, caring for their own kids, grocery shopping, etc
I realize I am in the minority here - But I actually hate that it is assumed that my wife does all of those things and gets all the glory, when I am the one who does them all.
The virality of the video and the number of comments of this TikTok video showed that people are actually aware of these toxic behaviours. But why then people get along with these situations? Most of them occur in the family and groups of friends. So not saying to your family member or a close friend that they are being unreasonable saves you from a fight that at first seems unnecessary because these people are close to you, so why would they want bad things for you?
People bragging that they are “brutally honest”. You can be honest without being Brutal.
most of the time, they just want to be brutal. the honesty is just coincidental
Don't come at me but moms who excessively drink wine to put up with their kids. you'll never convince me it's ok .
OCD. It's not trendy it's an illness.
Later all these saved fights turn little annoying behaviours into normalised habits: spitting something upsetting and then calling yourself “brutally honest”, being abusive towards your son’s/daughter’s partner, or spreading toxic positivity when clearly this is not the way to solve an occurring problem.
Do you also find some other things that people say or do to be toxic, or maybe you know an effective way on how to stop this kind of behaviour? Share your thoughts in the comments!
Giving money to homeless on YouTube. Toxic. You don't need other people to see you doing charitable things for it to be worth doing.
Toxic positivity... let people feel
people who are upbeat and positive all the time tend to irritate me
not sure why your being downvoted, i agree. it can get really annoying
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I read an interesting article by someone who had breast cancer, and how suffocating and dismissive she found all the forced positivity. My own tiny example was when my mother was dying (quite suddenly of covid, although she had been infirm for a year or so before) one of the staff at her care home told me not to cry. At the time I was too emotional and surprised to react, but that casual remark had quite a big negative effect on me.
A subsection of this is toxic Christian rhetoric. It's bad enough when someone does the "Now, it's not THAT bad" schtick, but it is even more damaging when it's wrapped up in harmful ideology like "You need to let go and let God" and "It's because you don't put your faith in Jesus" and "God is just testing you because you have a very special purpose in life!" None of that helps. Stop.
In stories (and some cases in real life too) people that are too nice are almost always the villain or just has a dark secret. Being happy is one thing, being excessively happy is another
Some people are just very positive all the time and it's funny how people are saying that it's toxic or that it affects them. I hear the reasoning and I agree as I tend to be a bit of a rain cloud sometimes BUT to tell someone to stop being overly happy because it affects YOU is the definition of toxic. You want them to let you just be? Let them just be too!
I agree with you. They downvoting you but this people are so just feel bad for their life they envy those who can still smile in the rain. Down vote us all you can but you can't hide the fact that you hate yourself so much that's why you don't want other to be so happy
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Feel what you want. Positive is what I feel. I prefer to be positive then sit in a puddle and cry or rage against what I can’t control or worse things I can do something about. We all have feeling and we are all different. Also, you may not want to hear my happiness and that ok but maybe I don’t want to hear your feeling either and that is just as ok
In fairness, I've met people who don't realize they're being toxic. I usually give them the benefit of the doubt the first time, and explain that saying "I'm here for you" or "is there anything I can do?" is a much healthier and more helpful response.
Toxic positivity, yeah like nothing negative is not allowed to exist. That is basically denying a huge part of yourself. Good luck with that!
Happiness and joy are good emotions, but no one should be taunted because they don't feel that way twenty four hours a day.
I'm sorry...I'm an optimist, but everyone is entitled to feel how they feel !!
I absolutely hate positive people who refuse to acknowledge the dark and difficult sides of life.
EG "We are here to celebrate the life of.... "!!!!! I HATE that phrase . My loved one has died. I am very sad and hurting. In time I will celebrate that s/he lived, but on the day of the funeral I am in mourning.
Absolutely! Sucks everyone is downvoting you but it's the truth. People who want to just be alone and feel sad should also leave people who are alone who feel happy. It's funny all these comments who are calling them fake or liars...like maybe you are just sad all the time and they can find joy, sucks to be you!
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I blocked my friend's husband on all social media because he is condescendingly positive, and I think I lost my friend cause of it.
I hate this because, I thought I had to be the happy friend all the time, and that my emotions weren't valid, still struggling with that, but I'm getting better
Why would people don't want someone to be happy? If they faking it. It's their choice. You don't know their story. Why would it bother you all? Well there's another name for hating someone's happiness "jelousy"
In my opinion, some people get this whole "Think positive!" idea completely wrong. If you are sad or hurt for a reason, it will not do you any good at all to pretend otherwise. If a close friend of yours suddenly dies and you have to smile at your customers and show a happy face, your subconscious mind will say all the time "No, you are not, you are lying." Allow yourself to feel sad, acknowledge it - and then, only after you have done that, don't bathe in it. Actively decide to concentrate from now on on the good things. Like, in my example, while it is of course sad that your friend died - isn't it fabulous that you got to know them? Don't you have fantastic memories? Has your friend influenced some decision in your life that is still important and valid now? Be grateful for what you have and really try to concentrate more and more on the positive things. This will GENUINELY lift your mood in the long run - but don't pretend to be a happy bunny all the time if you are not.
They use their zodiac sign to justify their actions and anger issues.
Adhd- just because you were late a few times and got distracted by your friends in class doesn't mean you have it. It's not fun and quirky.
YES don't just self-diagnose because you daydream. Tell me once a professional diagnoses you bitch
Being each other's “everything”. Nah y'all both need lives, family, and friends
"Push yourself till it hurts” when it comes to work, school, physical activities. I don't get paid enough to go over my physical limits.
Treating trauma/traumatic events as a competition.
When the current gfs hate their boyfriends ex's for no other reason but the fact they dated him.
Mother in law's being abusive towards their son mates it's normal in so many cultures and it's NEVER OKAY
Men not taking care of their children because they have a new woman in their life
The whole “respect your elders” where I agree, you should show respect but there is a lot of disrespectful elderly and people in general who don't
Overprotective partners - your partner should trust your judgment enough to let you stand up for yourself or ask for their help when it's needed
Hustle culture for me. Would rather have a good paying 9-5 than 3 entrepreneural "hustles"
People romanticise "being crazy" in relationships. "Yeah she's so crazy, she deleted every girl off my Facebook, she's so crazy I love her though
Friendzoning! setting boundaries in friendships should be okay. no one owes you getting into a relationship
Going through your partners phone
this is actually rlly disrespectful and disgusting. m8, if they let you use their phone its bc they trust you. don't exploit that.
The ‘psycho' girlfriend. There's a difference between boundaries and control/abuse
The concept of forgiveness nowadays is just "oh yeah they hurt you and u prob have trauma u will deal with forever but just forgive and move on" um no
Yeah like my ex friends beat me up ( I had bruises) I got horrible anxiety that they would stab me while I was outside bc my mum asked me to go to the store, after the weekend one of them ( didn't even apologise) asked if we could be friends again and I said no bc they beat me caused me pain and anxiety and made me scared to go outside
When people talk about beating there kids or scaring there kids
I don't know if this is toxic but people think that because two people have been together for years their relationship is perfect and healthy.
Any beauty standards
Couples that take pride in being each other's only friends and spend ALL their time together. It's good to be separate from your partner sometimes
Note: this post originally had 47 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
Idk if this is toxic or not but when parents (typically dads) “joke” about how if the boyfriend stays over, the shotgun will be out or something like that. Or they’ll camp outside the boyfriends room so he can’t go anywhere. It just seems so immature and shows a complete disregard for the guys feelings.
it is toxic. not only does it shame and disregard the boyfriend, it asserts that the daughter "belongs" to the dad/parents. neither of those things are okay.
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I really want to add something: they pretend to have depression because apparently its cool. It literally kills people.
mental illness seems to have become some sort of sick trend. now, i can't tell exactly where the line is, but i know you can feel depressed or anxious without having a depressive or anxiety disorder. i think for many people, the line is blurred. it's absolutely unfair to those who have an actual problem, and diminishes their struggles
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Grown men acting perverted towards young girls or women. Saying things such as, "Make sure to save her for me!" as a joke. Sir, the only thing being saved for you is a cell in prison.
Who's idealizing these? I've heard for years now that these are toxic behaviors, and we knew that long before TikTok came to be. Unfortunately there are always going to be people that oversimplify things, use mental illness terms as adjectives, put too much stock into gender roles and star signs etc. But this sort of behavior is NOT being 'idealized by society' anymore.
Pretending to have either ADHD or depression/severe anxiety are the ones I expected here. Found a lot more that I hadn't even thought about. One I didn't see was people talking about 'my multiple personalities' like, im not sure, but i feel like that'd be kinda offensive to people who actually have multiple personality disorder
And it's the wrong name. And it doesn't work like that. And if you have more than one mood doesn't mean you have more than one personality....
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started off mildly interesting and then took an armpit dive into "I wanna raise my hand and say something".
Let's not forget Hyping up people who f*cking post videos of their partner cheating on them and then destroying that person's car
Am I losing my mind or was there a very similar post somewhat recently?
Using spirituality and self- ̶ ̶b̶l̶a̶m̶e̶ healing as an excuse to stay in toxic relationships.
Idk if this is toxic or not but when parents (typically dads) “joke” about how if the boyfriend stays over, the shotgun will be out or something like that. Or they’ll camp outside the boyfriends room so he can’t go anywhere. It just seems so immature and shows a complete disregard for the guys feelings.
it is toxic. not only does it shame and disregard the boyfriend, it asserts that the daughter "belongs" to the dad/parents. neither of those things are okay.
Load More Replies... I really want to add something: they pretend to have depression because apparently its cool. It literally kills people.
mental illness seems to have become some sort of sick trend. now, i can't tell exactly where the line is, but i know you can feel depressed or anxious without having a depressive or anxiety disorder. i think for many people, the line is blurred. it's absolutely unfair to those who have an actual problem, and diminishes their struggles
Load More Replies... Grown men acting perverted towards young girls or women. Saying things such as, "Make sure to save her for me!" as a joke. Sir, the only thing being saved for you is a cell in prison.
Who's idealizing these? I've heard for years now that these are toxic behaviors, and we knew that long before TikTok came to be. Unfortunately there are always going to be people that oversimplify things, use mental illness terms as adjectives, put too much stock into gender roles and star signs etc. But this sort of behavior is NOT being 'idealized by society' anymore.
Pretending to have either ADHD or depression/severe anxiety are the ones I expected here. Found a lot more that I hadn't even thought about. One I didn't see was people talking about 'my multiple personalities' like, im not sure, but i feel like that'd be kinda offensive to people who actually have multiple personality disorder
And it's the wrong name. And it doesn't work like that. And if you have more than one mood doesn't mean you have more than one personality....
Load More Replies... started off mildly interesting and then took an armpit dive into "I wanna raise my hand and say something".
Let's not forget Hyping up people who f*cking post videos of their partner cheating on them and then destroying that person's car
Am I losing my mind or was there a very similar post somewhat recently?
Using spirituality and self- ̶ ̶b̶l̶a̶m̶e̶ healing as an excuse to stay in toxic relationships.
