What is a toxic empath, and what are the signs of one? Do you suspect someone of being a toxic empath, or are you worried that you may be one? Can a toxic person be an empath? Is toxic empathy the same as dark empathy?
Empathy is the ability to feel another person’s emotions; toxic empathy is the tendency to over-identify with another person’s emotions. As a result, you absorb their suffering and pain until it becomes all-consuming.
17 Signs of a Toxic Empath
When Empathy Becomes Toxic
How does empathy become toxic? If we want to understand toxic empathy, let’s remind ourselves of what empathy is. Psychotherapist Rebecca Love defines empathy as:
“…a state of over-identifying and over-responsibility for another’s emotional state, well-being or problem-solving, to the detriment of your own relationships, self-care and sense of peace.”
So, what turns an empath into a toxic empath? This recent study is useful as it highlights the four themes of empathy:
- Understanding
- Feeling
- Sharing someone else’s feelings
- Maintaining a differentiation between the self and the other person
And it’s the last part that is important, because empathy becomes toxic when you blur this boundary.
Here are the signs you are dealing with a toxic empath:
- You feel an overwhelming and persistent sense of sadness and depression.
- You cannot concentrate on your own life because you are so consumed by the emotions of the other person.
- You neglect your feelings or beliefs.
- You excuse someone’s actions because you are totally immersed in their emotions.
- You identify your value by helping this person or by solving their problems.
- You can never say no to this person, even to the detriment of your well-being.
- You feel responsible for the happiness of this person.
- You have physical symptoms of stress (headaches, an upset stomach, insomnia, etc.).
- You put your needs on the back-burner to prioritize the other person.
- You feel drained when attempting the simplest tasks.
- You lose your autonomy as you take on more of the other person’s struggles; your boundaries become blurred.
- You insist on giving advice or imposing your solutions to their problems.
- You have become resentful of the time this person is taking up from you.
- You are suffering compassion fatigue; you feel irritated, cynical, or numb to this person’s problems.
- They only call you when they want something.
- You normalize unacceptable behavior.
- You have become their scapegoat for anything that goes wrong.
How to Deal with a Toxic Empath
Use Consequences, Not Boundaries
We hear the word ‘boundaries’ a lot when we talk about dealing with toxic people. I like to use the term ‘consequences’ instead. It’s sort of the same thing, but it’s proactive, rather than reactive. Boundaries are just a set of rules, but what happens if someone consistently breaks your rules?
Barb Nangle is a boundaries coach and gives an insightful example of boundaries, which I’ve paraphrased here:
Nangle says to think of boundaries as a fence with a gate around your house. You are the house and inside your fence is acceptable behavior; outside is not acceptable. It’s up to you to decide who enters via the gate; it’s your responsibility. You can’t expect other people to police themselves.
This is the same as if you left the gate open and allowed people to come into your property and wreck your house. You’ve made the rules, but people have ignored them. What do you do now?
You can’t control another person’s behavior simply by laying down a few rules. However, setting consequences when they break the rules allows you to show the person what will happen when their behavior becomes unacceptable.
If someone does something you don’t like, you give them consequences. You don’t just hope they’ll change; that’s like leaving your gate open and hoping for the best. Consequences give you control.
Examples of Consequences
- Boundaries: Please lower your voice when you speak to me.
- Consequences: If you continue to raise your voice at me, I will walk away.
- Boundaries: You can borrow my car, but please replace the petrol you use.
- Consequences: I won’t let you borrow the car again if you don’t refill the tank.
- Boundaries: Please don’t make hurtful jokes about me at family events.
- Consequences: I won’t join you for family events if you continue to make hurtful jokes about me.
- Boundaries: Please don’t keep questioning my parenting skills.
- Consequences: I’m not willing to discuss this when you give me unwanted advice.
- Boundaries: You are rude to me when you drink. Please don’t speak to me that way.
- Consequences: I will not speak to you when you are drunk.
Have you noticed that the examples of boundaries all use the pronoun ‘You’, and the consequence examples use ‘I’? “I will not…”, “I do not…”, “I won’t put up with…”, etc. This highlights how proactive consequences are. When you use ‘I’, you are in control. Using ‘you’ gives control to the other person. “You don’t do this…”, “You never do this…”, “You keep doing this…” You have no control over the other person.
Why Consequences Stop Toxic Empathy
- They empower you to stop unacceptable behavior.
- They protect you from feeling guilty.
- They stop you from enabling unacceptable behavior.
- They help others change their behavior.
- They stop you from becoming overwhelmed by other people’s problems.
- They teach people to respect your decisions.
- They make others responsible for their decisions.
- They stop you from neglecting your needs.
- They make people accountable for their behavior.
- They help you take control of the situation.
- Consequences allow healthy growth, learning, and mutual respect.
Final thoughts
Toxic empathy shows that too much of a good thing can damage our well-being. However, setting consequences can help manage a toxic empath, and allow you to be the compassionate person you are, but not to the detriment of your health.
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