The seeming fashion for labelling people toxic, narcissistic etc

[Teasel]

There seems to be huge amounts of questionable but very sure of itself information online about toxic / narcissistic people. Full of angry descriptions of how they all do this or that and are evil.

Am I.the only one that thinks this? I mean I do think the man I live with is somewhat narcissistic, somewhat toxic, and I know lots of us are on this website because of abusive others in our life.

But I'm rather suspicious too of this seeming fashion for reading reams and reams of information online and in videos. Kind of stinks a bit to me of cynically fulfilling a need we have when hurt to label them as bad...

Not explaining myself too well.

What do you think?

 

[grit]

I sort of agree with you that we are so fashionably labeling people because in general that makes us the "good" people but in all fairness, to marry a narcissistic and toxic person, one must have similar traits that are not conscious to them so they can easily project on others. It is hard to look inside and say wow! I am abhor....very hard for even the most integrated. But we all have situations where that side of ours comes out if not externally at least in thoughts.

From my own experience, I used to label people crazy or unstable or wow! out of in touch (I had such hostility but kept all internal and kept me in smug) but life has sense of humor. I went to therapy and guess what....every singe thing that I was attributing to others has slapped me right on the face. My only gracing quality was I did not deny them but calmly accepted them and even nurture them. Am I out of the water? 100% not but I do catch myself often before I bulldoze on others. The other for me at least most graceful was I was sort of either extreme compassion or extreme hostile and to balance out did not seem too far fetched.

But I see where you are coming from, just point the finger and run is quite common now!

 

[somerandomguy]

All of us have good and bad characteristics. But people would rather talk about things in black and white terms because it's easier.

(Feel free to skip the next two paragraphs of blathering.)

For example, an online trend lately is to brand masculinity - and by extension, all men - as "toxic" (an extreme pet peeve of mine, of course). Far from being a steadying influence, the academic world looks at men solely from a deficit model - that is, they concentrate on how the performance of masculinity is harmful to society and all individuals within society - so, basically academia happily backs up your favorite influencer's notion that "men are toxic."

Those of us who actually have to deal with men in real life, or who happen to actually BE men, know that the situation is far less dire than the picture painted by sociologists and social media. But you'd never know that if you have to go to college or use the internet a lot.

 

[Gs172003]

There seems to be huge amounts of questionable but very sure of itself information online about toxic / narcissistic people. Full of angry descriptions of how they all do this or that and are evil.

Am I.the only one that thinks this? I mean I do think the man I live with is somewhat narcissistic, somewhat toxic, and I know lots of us are on this website because of abusive others in our life.

But I'm rather suspicious too of this seeming fashion for reading reams and reams of information online and in videos. Kind of stinks a bit to me of cynically fulfilling a need we have when hurt to label them as bad...

Not explaining myself too well.

What do you think?

I believe alot of people do narcissistic things, do toxic things but it doesn't make them narcissistic or toxic. Just like alot of other things they've become buzzwords.

 

[blackemerald1]

Just like alot of other things they've become buzzwords.

^Yes!

Maybe 'trends' 'buzzwords' - that kind of word use is simply mob behaviour?

 

[hithere]

Yes, I've thought the same thing.

 

[Sideways]

Total buzzword. And yeah, there are articles you can read where pretty much any kind of noxious behaviour? Is apparently ‘narcissistic’.

To me? When a person uses the word ‘narcissistic’ to describe someone they don’t like, it means next to nothing. It imparts zero useful information about what that person was actually like.

When people describe someone in their life as narcissistic, I always have an itch to say “Use your words, you can do it, us your words”!!!

 

[joeylittle]

I think people struggle in their need to communicate their suffering, their anger and fear.

If a diagnosis (of sorts) can be applied - something that has some science behind it, something that comes with both a "this is how bad it is" primer and a "how to handle these people" kit, it creates validation for the suffering one has endured. It helps one make sense of abusive behavior. It's empowering, to know that there are other people who have suffered that same kind of awful.

Unfortunately, it also leads to problems. There's this weird game of connect-the-dots - people trying to match behavior they've observed in the person to symptoms they see listed, without understanding what those symptoms really are. This can change how they relate to that person, not always for the better. It can also affect how they relate to their own suffering, and in turn cause them to pathologize their experience.

And, this is often personality disorders we are talking about: Some of the most nuanced and ever-evolving diagnoses in mental health. I can almost guarantee that whatever pop psychologist boiled it down into some easily digested article or advice column - they took shortcuts in laying out the parameters of the pathology.

I get it, I really do. It's hard to wrap one's mind around the horrible, evil shit that people are capable of doing. Having a label for it makes it a little less unknowable. But assigning the wrong label creates an additional set of problems, and really (IMO) doesn't help most people.

I'd rather people use more words, than default to a psych term they don't understand. Call someone a rude, inconsiderate, self-absorbed jerk with real anger management problems. Now, that person could be described as having narcissistic tendencies or traits. And, it's possible they have narcissistic personality disorder...but that can't be determined merely from the description I gave. Pop psychology is simply going to call this person a "narcissist" - which is just one internet search away from someone misunderstanding and making the leap to "OMG, it's NPD".

Drives me nuts.

 

[Sideways]

Pop psychology is simply going to call this person a "narcissist" - which is just one internet search away from someone misunderstanding and making the leap to "OMG, it's NPD".

Using NPD, rather than just ‘narcissistic’, is where I start to get angry.

Because that’s just plain old mental health stigma. NPD is rare. It doesn’t mean the person is evil, any more than PTSD does.

 

[Mee]

For example, an online trend lately is to brand masculinity - and by extension, all men - as "toxic" (an extreme pet peeve of mine, of course). Far from being a steadying influence, the academic world looks at men solely from a deficit model - that is, they concentrate on how the performance of masculinity is harmful to society and all individuals within society - so, basically academia happily backs up your favorite influencer's notion that "men are toxic’.

That is not what toxic masculinity means, as I have understood and read about it: that men are toxic. It’s painful that it’s interpreted this way though I have seen it too. It’s also not that masculinity is toxic.

An example of toxic masculinity is the supposition that ‘men can’t be raped because they are always up for it, what man doesn’t want sex 24 hours a day’. Or that gay is lesser. ‘That’s so gay’. Or that false rape accusations are bigger risk than sexual assault for men. That women reject men under 5’10 or with emotional vulnerability.

All these are examples of toxic masculinity; things that RESTRICT men to a tight pattern of behaviour damaging to both genders.

Toxic masculinity restricts men; from enjoying activities that seem ‘unmanly’, from respect of sexual autonomy, from expectations from people based on gender stereotype.


Its not, in correct usage, an anti men phrase but the opposite.

The words used in gender issues inevitably hit our triggers. I don’t think i’ll Ever feel entirely comfortable saying I am a feminist because of the, Er, toxic connotations. But ... then the equality movements with no neutral terms have weaponisation to that and seem to do ‘whataboutism’ when really the answer is. ‘Yeah, it’s all terrible, let’s deal with it all’

 

[somerandomguy]

Its not, in correct usage, an anti men phrase but the opposite.

Ah, but where have you seen the "correct" connotation in popular culture? In fact, people - both men and women - are throwing out the phrase "toxic masculinity" to mean "men are toxic."

And there's a whole argument about whether so-called "toxic masculinity" is actually a thing. I say it's not, but I'm not going to hijack this thread about it. It's enough to say that an entire gender gets called toxic, and that is incorrect.

 

[Mee]

Regarding narcissism: I do agree. Also ghosting.

It’s often a failure to look at ourselves .

Something that has come up for me a few times post trauma had has been perception and that motivation is often hard to gauge.

Sometimes it’s difficult for Ts who have the best access to our thoughts to get clear indication of motivation; I can go over things a couple of times to find the right language to make myself feel understood. In that relatively non judgmental, space where I am not going to be damaged. Outside that space how can I trust someone who maybe isn’t putting in that work ( I don’t know) who might or might not be self aware ( I don’t know) who is certain to have baggage of their own and concerns...and plenty I don’t know about ; how can I know their motivation? We rarely have the information required to make that call, only a belief of whether that person is good for us to be around.

And motivation can make the same apparent action be narcissistic or empathetic. I know I have behaved in ways that have appeared self centred post trauma especially, but my T, my DH my close friends ‘get it’. The poor other person is probably on Facebook telling people I am a narcissist. So be it. Annoying but, so be it.