What It Mean to Have a Toxic Family

I decided to write this article about a toxic mom or family because of the situation I'm dealing with. The word ‘mother’ stands for affection, care, warmth, and positivity. But a toxic mother is the complete opposite of it. Instead of love, a toxic mother feeds lies, rebuke, ignorance, humiliation, and other negative traits to her child.

Toxic family members may not trust each other, respect boundaries, or seek solutions to conflicts. Toxic family is a term that describes a family where there is a consistent pattern of harmful behaviors toward other members.

If you’ve experienced a toxic family dynamic, your feelings may go beyond frustration or annoyance. Instead, interacting with or even thinking about your family might cause significant emotional distress.

The word “family” can bring to mind an array of complex emotions. Depending on your childhood and current family situation, these feelings could be mostly positive, mostly negative, or an equal mix of both.

Let me be clear: All mothers make mistakes. God knows I’ve made my fair share! But mistakes and character flaws are two very different things. A mother can become toxic to her children when her repeated ‘toxic’ behavior has become so deeply ingrained that it becomes part of her identity, and she doesn’t even realize it.

Toxic mothers have a way of never assuming responsibility, pointing all the blame on others, and manipulating. To a toxic mother, anything that is not in line with what she wants, expects, or believes is a threat.

Toxic mothers have to have things their way at all times. Controlling can be seen in a variety of ways—outright yelling, manipulative comments, and blaming are all common. This is an immature and unhealthy way to handle relationships and is in no way considered good mothering.

Toxic mothers are never pleased. No matter how good you are, it’s never good enough. She will always find something to criticize. Toxic mothers take the cake when it comes to being selfish. Many will disguise what they do for their children as being a ‘good mother,’ but there’s always a motive. Oftentimes it’s a front to try and prove to others that she is a good mother.

Toxic mothers often look great on the outside and have many fooled. They are usually attractive and charming or put on a great act of pretending to be sweet and caring. This list is in no way exhaustive. It’s just a glimpse of the poor behaviors exhibited by ‘toxic’ mothers who disguise themselves as ‘good.’

If you are the victim of a toxic mother, I want you to know that you are not alone. As children, they are still not fully aware of just how poor the mothering they received was and the damage it’s caused. They are in pain and confused, and they are feeling guilty about the feelings they have for their very own mothers.

Toxic families are negative energy – they drain you of your happiness and love to create drama, often at your expense. Sometimes we need to take close evaluation to see if life will be better letting go of these toxic family members.

Family is supposed to be supportive and loving and caring and even helpful, but what if they are not? What do you do? How do you overcome it? And how do you get over the hurt and the pain?

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