It’s more subtle than that. “Toxic” is used as a synonym for “irredeemably harmful”, and that very distinction makes all the difference. If a person is labeled a “jerk”, they are potentially redeemable and able to be reformed, but if someone is labeled as “toxic”, the label itself declares that there is no helping them. The label itself prescribes ostracism.

So, while it is indeed free of connotations of intent, it evokes disgust and, in fact, invites ostracism. If something is so dangerous that it can kill you, there's rarely much wisdom in attempting to talk it out of being lethal. Better to just remove it from your environment.

In any case, I agree that the word is tragically overworked. And don't we all know that overwork can be toxic.

I am non-contact with a toxic parent because I know it brings out worse behaviour in myself, and I want to stop that cycle of passive-aggressiveness and judgement towards people I do care about.

I just meant to say that *to me*, toxic doesn't imply irredeemable. It's just a popular word for harmful.

So really I think "toxic" is appropriate.

There are plenty of people in the world who you would better off just staying away from.

* no one cares about your opinions or ideas,

* no one has any actual affection for you; they only appear to when you have something they want,

* in a choice between your physical or mental well-being and their short-term happiness, you take a rather distant second,

* and then you die.

I'm convinced that the world is cleanly divided into two categories of people. People that internalize this early in life, and people that never do at all.

Along with learning to be bored, it's the most important life lesson you can pass on to the next generation to ensure a happy productive life.

What's the point in having children and raising them as best as you can if the talking heads in society will treat them to focus on your unintentional harms and resent you?

I myself am one of four children and I'm the only one that had a healthy relationship with both our parents because I ignored society's pressure to focus on people's failures and instead consider parents as flawed people doing their best given their upbringing, values, effort and the knowledge/information they had available to them at the time. My three siblings all have have issues with one or both parents and they aren't doing as well I me emotionally and I feel bad for them but also know it isn't entirely their fault since society has fed them toxicity.

That's right: society teaching people to focus on how others are toxic to you can be as toxic as those people are and often is far more toxic than any toxicity you experienced from the people you're been taught to consider toxic. Yet, we never discuss how all these discussions about "toxic people" are more toxic that the people we're discussing.

I have come to the conclusion that my parents, who of course had their flaws, were damn nigh perfect.

"Personally, I think putting that reckoning front and center is a good thing" I really disagree. If you parent was a monster, then absolutely. Otherwise, if they met the 3 points above then what good does calling them out and telling them that what they did was in your mind, harmful? They cant change anything and all it will do is make them react in hurt; they are still just people and you are invalidating their core life achievement. My parents were far from perfect, but they loved me and did their best, what would calling them out on any perceived failures do? I feel like people have lost the ability to just take things in stride these days. I can only speak from the personal experience of me and my siblings of course. My brother and I are very different in almost every way especially politics (He is pro Trump, I am not) but we just assume the other is coming from an honest place and doing what they think is best in their mind for their family and have good conversations and our families hang out often. My sister is unable to take anything in stride and assumes anyone that has different opinions than her is coming from a vindictive place. She has elected to completely remove herself from the family based on us not being far enough left for her (and I am pretty left). I find if one just assumes positive intent on another's actions as long as reality and not being a sucker allows then things are good. I always just assumed positive intent on my parents past actions or simple human flaw and all is good.

Not all parents do that, when a divorce happened at least one of them thought that as well. The thing is: not everything is abuse but things can still be bad enough as also pointed out in the article. That's when you call it toxic I guess. It's this fuzzy new word to describe some hard to grasp behaviour that is maybe only so hard to grasp because it's that outlandish. One time I was with my sister and my father on holiday - my mother gave us a cell-phone so we could call in case he would abduct us. In any case, my mother was completely overwhelmed with raising 2 kids and cut some corners. Also my father did his best to put pressure on my mother, mostly financially. (He moved far away and blames anything bad that happened on my mother or me) And the list goes on. My sister is completely unwilling to talk about any of this. My father is like described in the article saying I'm rewriting history and having a complete lack of empathy. Is this abuse? Probably not, unless you go with a crazy strict definition. But toxic for sure. What upsets me the most that this is just some really fuzzy stuff that happened, I cannot pin-point any isolated root cause. So to come up with a reasonable explanation why I chose estrangement, I would have to tell quite a long story and some details are too personal. Still I'm much happier now.