The words that help to recognize toxic relationships

Love Bombing, Gaslighing, Negging, Future Faking. Behind these terms, painful, often invisible dynamics are hidden. Toxic relationships are not new, but in recent years we have found more precise words to tell them. Terms, many of which of English origin, who not only describe what happens, but also help to recognize it. Because giving a name to things is the first step to understand them, and understanding them is the first step to defend yourself.

It is with this goal that Babbel, the app that favors mutual understanding through languages, has collaborated with Valentina Trespi, psychologist and psychotherapistto explore the lexicon of toxic relationships. An investigation that brings to light the dysfunctional mechanisms that can nest in love ties, but also in friendships and family relationships.

Let’s start from Gaslighingperhaps the most known term: it indicates when someone manipulates the perception of the reality of another person, making it doubt of their own memory, lucidity or sensitivity. It is an invisible violence, made of phrases such as: “you are too sensitive”, “you invene everything”, “it didn’t happen”. Those who suffer Gaslighting ends up not even trust themselves.

Very similar, but thinner, is the Negging: It consists in congratulating that in reality they are masked criticism. As if to say: “I didn’t think you would have made it, instead you surprised me.” The result? The other feels insecure and seeks approval by those who diminish it.

Then there is the ** Love Bombing,** An explosion of affection – gifts, attention, messages – which may seem romantic, but has a manipulative purpose: to create an emotional dependence, and then alternate closeness and frost, and keep the other under control.

In this emotional swing, the Future Faking: The manipulator promises a future together (marriage, children, travel), without any intention of making it. It only serves to tie the other to itself, fueling hopes that will be systematically disregarded.

When things get complicated, obstructionism often arrives (in English stonewalling), that is, the refusal to speak, to resolve a conflict, to face a problem. You pretend nothing, turn your face, dialogue is denied. A passive-aggressive form that freezes the relationship.

In some cases, those who manipulate does not act alone: ​​they use so -called “Flying monkeys” (Flying Monkeys), People who help him – consciously or not – to isolate, guilty or control the victim. They can be friends, family, colleagues: they lift from the wrong side, feeding the toxic spiral.

Another harmful behavior is that of ** Fauxpology, ** The “fake apologies”. Phrases like: “I’m sorry that you offended yourself”, “If you felt bad, I’m sorry” they move responsibility for the wounded person, without ever really admitting the mistake. The implied message is: “You are the problem, not me.”

Toxic relationships do not concern only couples: even in the family dysfunctional dynamics can be established, often exchanged for affection or concern. This is the case oftoxic entrya symbiotic relationship in which the boundaries between parents and children cancel themselves. The mother or father trust too much, expect too much, intrude too much, transforming the son into an “support adult”.

Similar, but more targeted, it is the emotional dumping: a person continually pours their negative emotions on another, dealing with it as a container. “Speaking is therapeutic” – he says – but he always does it and only one -way, downloading anxiety, anger, complaints, without ever returning listening.

Then there are the “private” relationships in the most literal sense: they are called ** Indoor Relationship**, and they are relationships that exist only inside the house. No exit, no presentation to friends, no photos together. If this choice is unilateral, it can result in ** pocketing**: the other is “kept in the pocket”, hidden, almost as if it were ashamed of him.

Even after a break, the control can continue. It happens with the *** ‘orbiting ***: the ex no longer speaks with you, but continues to look at your stories, to put like, to get noticed. It is a silent presence that prevents you from turning the page.

Or it occurs theHooveringwhen the manipulator tries to “suck” the ex in the relationship, using nostalgic messages, declarations of love, promises of change (only to then return to the old behaviors)

More aggressive is still the phenomenon of Smear Campigiging: The ex speaks badly of you around, tries to ruin your reputation, to put you against common friends, to let you pass through the “bad” of the situation.

Finally, in the time of social networks, there is also digital toxicity, and one of its faces is the **Sharenging: ** Parents who compulsively share photos, videos and details of online children, often without asking for consent and without considering the impact on privacy and the construction of children’s identity.