What is Toxicity?

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Toxicity

Toxicity is a useful shorthand for “harm that keeps getting into the system and making it worse over time.” In psychology and everyday life, it usually means patterns (in thoughts, relationships, or cultures) that regularly damage well‑being instead of supporting it.​

Self toxicity

Self‑toxicity is how you harm yourself from the inside through your own habits of thinking and behaviour. Examples:

• Relentless self‑criticism (“I’m useless”, “nothing I do counts”).
• Pushing past your limits as if rest or needs are weaknesses.
• Staying in situations that repeatedly violate your values or safety and telling yourself you “deserve” it.​

Over time this can feed depression, anxiety, shame, and a sense of emptiness or worthlessness.​

Societal and environmental toxicity

This is harm coming from the systems around you:

• Societal toxicity – cultures of racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, extreme inequality, or constant achievement pressure. These send repeated messages that some people matter less, or only matter when they perform.​
• Environmental toxicity (psychological sense) – workplaces, schools, families, or online spaces where fear, bullying, chronic stress, or emotional neglect are normal. Living in that kind of “emotional climate” can create hypervigilance, burnout, and trauma responses.​

This is different from chemical toxicity, but the logic is similar: long‑term exposure to a harmful environment wears the system down.

“Normalised” or “healthy” toxicity

Some harmful patterns get rebranded as “healthy” or “just how things are,” for example:

• Always being busy, sleep‑deprived, and stressed is praised as commitment.
• Self‑sacrifice without boundaries is called kindness or loyalty.
• Constant self‑comparison and perfectionism are treated as “high standards” and ambition.​

Because everyone around you is doing it, the toxicity becomes normalised: people stop seeing it as harmful and may even shame those who step back. Research on perfectionism and high‑stakes achievement culture shows this kind of “performative health” and overwork is linked to higher anxiety, depression, and burnout, not better long‑term well‑being.​

In plain terms:

• Self‑toxicity – you become your own source of poison.
• Societal/environmental toxicity – the “air” you live in is polluted with harmful norms and behaviours.
• Normalised “healthy” toxicity – damaging patterns get sold as success, discipline, or virtue, so people embrace them instead of questioning them.

Further Reading