 Thank you for joining us here at Psych2Go. References are listed in the description below if you want to learn more. Are there occasional disagreements within your family? Your sibling is driving you up the wall and your parents are too harsh? If the answer is yes, no worries, you're probably still good. There is no perfectly peaceful family. In the end, you can always count on them to be there for you and you feel safe and loved. A toxic family situation, however, is more persistent and constant. Psychological damage from growing up in this dysfunctional environment breeds lasting stress, anxiety, conflict and fear among the family members. Does this sound a little too close for comfort? To find out more, here are seven telltale signs that you are indeed living in a toxic home environment. 1. You feel invisible Having your needs neglected by your family can be incredibly damaging to your mental health and self-esteem. It's easy to feel invisible when your parents always act as if they're too busy for you or none of your siblings can make the time to hang out with you. Nobody seems to care or notice how you're doing, what you're feeling or what you have to say. Instead of communicating openly and honestly with one another, like a healthy family, yours makes you feel isolated, alone and insignificant. 2. You feel pressured Have you ever felt crushing guilt, worthlessness, or even fear from not getting 100% percent? Did that piano recital only land you third place instead of first, and now you wonder why you even bother to try? Your family might be imposing conditions of worth on you, which is a toxic behavior. A famous psychotherapist, Carl Rogers, says that conditions of worth means that you only feel loved and accepted by someone when you live up to their expectations of you. Parents are particularly guilty of this. While they may initially believe they're doing it for your own good, they then escalate, setting unrealistically high standards for you, with constant criticism for every perceived tiny mistake. This is toxic. 3. You feel misunderstood and discarded. Maybe you've tried to talk to them, or give what you feel are obvious signs regarding what you're going through. Yet no one in your family seems to understand you, or even care to. Your feelings are dismissed, and nothing you're going through is deemed important. Even though you're crying out for help, they're not supportive. Even though you're struggling, they remain unsympathetic and indifferent. 4. You feel like your worth depends on what you can give, not who you are. Are your family members only nice to you when they want something from you? Do you know that when they act caring, they're going to ask for something afterwards? Saying yes to these questions is a definite red flag courtesy of a toxic family. Relatives you act this way will often manipulate you, exploiting you for their own gain. You're nothing more to them than a means to an end, so they'll continually take without ever giving back. Even worse, giving into their demands creates a positive feedback loop, encouraging them to take advantage of you even more. 5. You feel forced to be around them. Another sign of a toxic family is if you feel suffocated simply by being around them. You come home and spend time with them only because you feel you have no choice. If you try to make your own life easy, they'll make you feel guilty, even ashamed for abandoning them, painting you as the villain. You feel so helplessly trapped in their vicious cycle of negativity that you may resort to lying just so you can get a breather. But getting that little break results in a significant feeling of relief. 6. They play power politics chess and you're the pawn. Power politics is defined as the struggle for power through deceitful and manipulative tactics. This is common for divorced parents who use their children as leverage against their ex-spouse, or those in an unhappy marriage who constantly fight at home. Although the toxic behavior isn't usually directed at the children, it can still be emotionally traumatizing for them as it creates a disruptive, chaotic and unstable growing up environment. 7. You feel constantly unhappy being around them. I know we have our occasional bad days, days when being around anyone, even your family is difficult. That's fine, that happens and it's not unhealthy. In a toxic familial situation, this feeling is fairly constant. In fact, you might say it's the norm with how you feel being around your family. They drag you down into their overwhelming and persistent negativity. They are constantly whining and moaning about the unfairness of life. Even when good things happen, they find a way to make it a bad thing. Since they can never let themselves be happy or content, you can't either. If you're not just as unhappy, they may resent you for it. This toxicity can build over time, like layered rot, until the point where the bad stuff is so unbearable, you have to leave for self-preservation. Living with a toxic family puts your mental health at constant risk. Moving away from your family does not necessarily reverse the damaging effects. You could be haunted for a long time, with some psychological scars that might never heal without proper treatment. So, if you are struggling to cut these people out of your life and create healthy boundaries for yourself, this is not wrong. In fact, this is healthy. You don't have to suffer in silence and you're not alone. Reach out to a mental health care professional or social worker to get the help you need to protect yourself from any future emotional damage. The first step to recovery is simply recognizing the signs. Do any of these signs resonate with you? Do you know someone who may be in or was in one of these situations? We hope we've helped you understand the world around you a little better. Please, like, share, and subscribe and let us know what you'd like to see next. Thanks for watching.