These Are the Worst Personality Types for Survivors to Surround Themselves With
Don’t let these charismatic tempters too close to your inner peace.
Do you feel like you keep landing in relationships with different versions of the same person? Do the things that attract you to someone always drive you away after a while? Both are common when we’re healing and trying to break through the repeating toxic relationship patterns. Patterns we tend to repeat with people who are either toxic themselves or a poor fit for our needs and long-term goals.
Certain individuals have a way of seeing the world and living lives that make them hold stable connections. It’s too great of a struggle for some, and that’s okay. What’s important is to acknowledge the poor relationship habits and partner selections that are repeating and holding happiness back. Getting to that starting point is a powerful first step on a journey to building better connections with our romantic partners.
Where is the pattern repeating for you?
Have you ever taken the time to analyze your relationship habits and beliefs? It’s not something we’re always conditioned to do. A lot of us stumble through relationships as we stumble down a dark hallway. We reach out for any connection we can make and hope that we don’t hurt ourselves along the way.
What works in a hallway doesn’t work in a romantic relationship…
Identifying our relationship patterns is how we break out of them. We can do this by taking a step back and getting a bird’s eye view. Think back to your lowest relationship moments, the worst partners, and mistakes. What is the common denominator? Why did you choose dysfunction and wind up with everything but the love you desired?
For those who keep bounding into partners who take advantage of them, it’s often helpful to start with personality patterns. We tend to be attracted to people who echo cycles of pain we’ve already normalized. Some look for themselves in the arms of others, but without a clear view of who they are, that becomes risky business.
What is central to these toxic attractions? Why do you keep going back to a person who refuses to prioritize your emotions? Once you answer these questions, you can take steps to create better relationship patterns that build you up (instead of tearing you down).
Why do you keep falling for these toxic personalities?
There are so many different personality types in this world. Someone can be open or closed. They can be ambitious or unplugged. As with anything else, however, some personality types are a better fit for relationships than others. Being attracted over and over to one of these 6 toxic personalities can make your love life more than just a little rocky.
The Sinister Jokester
The ability to make someone laugh is a superpower. Even someone who isn’t traditionally attractive can become irresistible if they know how to tickle a funny bone. An attraction to this charming jokester isn’t always the laugh it’s expected to be, however. Sometimes, a humorous, witty charmer, can have a dark side too. With the flip of a switch, they become someone else behind closed doors. Their humor can come from a deeper, shadowed place but that’s not always noticed until it’s too late.
The Why: The root of this attraction is a strange one. The Sinister Jokester appeals to those who have become addicted to the thrill of dancing on a knife’s edge. Some like the drama of never knowing where they’re going to land. The Jokester as a partner can be either affable or dangerous. That changeability feels familiar and uncomfortably comfortable to those who fall into their laps.
The Power Outlet
Powerful people are appealing. They may have a vibrant connection of social contacts that make their lives active and easy. Their powerful presence can be more of a charismatic outer shell, too. The Power Outlet is a person who carries themselves like they’ve got it all figured out, but there’s something darker beneath the surface. These ambitious, connected, charismatic people can be controlling, domineering, and demanding. They want everything their way all the time.
The Why: Attraction to these domineering, controlling personalities starts with insecurities and low self-esteem. These factors come together to make the idea of having a high role in society appealing. It can be a double-edged sword. There’s another level to this attraction too. Those with narcissistic tendencies also find socially powerful individuals appealing.
The Energy Vampire
The Energy Vampire is one of the toughest personality types to have in our lives. These individuals require the people around them to do a lot of emotional heavy lifting. Emotional labor isn’t where the line is drawn. The Energy Vampire can also be someone who exists in a state of victimhood that they expect others to draw them out of. Surely no one would be attracted to someone like that…?
The Why: Wrong. Draining people like this can be attractive to people with a savior complex. They believe that loving someone hard enough will empower them to solve their problems. In the end, they end up taking on the struggles of others to prove their goodness or righteousness to the world…who doesn’t give it to them. Even if they get that validation, they soon realize it’s meaningless anyway.
The Drama Queen
Dramatic people are everywhere. They pick fights and set thousands of tiny fires in their lives — and the lives of everyone else around them. A drama queen always has someone they want to gossip about. Worse, they are often someone who is always in crisis. If not, they can usually be found creating a crisis for other people. People like this are addicted to their messes. Malignant narcissists can fall into this category, as they take pleasure in disrupting the lives of other people.
The Why: Drama can be a big temptation to those who feel like they’re missing out on life. Those with low self-esteem can find themselves central to a lot of attention amid the drama. It makes them feel important and appeals to their basest instincts at the same time. For the vengeful, this attraction can also meet both a need for revenge and a need to save other people. Their nervous systems are addicted to the highs and lows.
The Lively Liar
It’s easy to suppose that no one tolerates a liar, but that simply isn’t true. Some people attract liar after liar, and they allow these deceptive individuals to wreak havoc in their lives. They forgive them over and over. Why? These manipulative, even Machiavellian, personality types undermine trust and security. They make their partners feel insecure and bring a lot of pain down on partnerships and family homes alike.
The Why: Who would be drawn to liars? Someone with low self-esteem. Now, there are good intentions. People like this want to think the best of other people because they’re desperate for others to think well of them. That can translate into a craving for outside validation. Savior complexes can also be at play (again). People who settle for the liars in their lives generally don’t have respect for themselves or their needs.
The Negative Nelly
Have you ever met someone who is completely negative? These people are total energy sucks, but not in the same way as an Energy Vampire. Their draining comes from the pessimistic way in which they interact with everything (and everyone) in their lives. They see the worst, experience the worst, and expect the worst. They’re paranoid, bad-tempered, and even mean-spirited. Yet some people can’t get enough (despite the fact they bring a cloud over the relationship).
The Why: Birds of a feather flock together, and that is certainly true here. Negative people attract other negative people. If you can’t get enough of these pessimistic people, it may be because you have your pessimistic views of the world. Or, you could still be in a place where you’re not taking full accountability for the elements of your life you could improve.
Getting out of our bad relationship habits…
There’s no point in throwing in the towel or giving up. Even if you have decades of hazardous relationship patterns behind you, it’s still possible for you to find your feet in a healthier partnership with someone who breaks the mold of your past attractions. Giving yourself that chance is owed, not optional. You deserve to be happy, but it has to focus on getting you out of your bad relationship habits by:
- Improving your understanding
- Expanding your love of self
- Holding up higher standards
Improve your understanding of relationships and what goes into building healthy connections. These partnerships require skills. If you haven’t developed those skills yet, now is your chance. Improve the way you communicate, the intentions you have, and how you set up iron-clad boundaries.
Next, build on a love of self. Self-esteem is a must in breaking bad relationship habits. You have to have enough love and respect for yourself to say no and walk away from the people who aren’t aligned with your highest values. That same self-esteem is required to stand up for your safety and your happiness.
From there, it’s a matter of holding higher standards. Take a good, hard look at your past relationships. Are you willing to settle for that same level of disrespect? That same level of control or diminishment? No? Then at some point, you have to stop accepting it and you have to take different action. Hold your partners to higher standards and hold yourself to them too.
© E.B. Johnson 2024
I am a writer, artist, NLPMP, and podcaster who helps people build creative lives after trauma. In my free time, I have a passion for fresh bread, history, and all things watercolor. Learn more about me here. Join my mailing list. Or, support my writing by subscribing below.