I heard of toxic people and I thought criminals….not so. Hardest thing about counseling was learning that some of the most toxic people I know are in my own family. If I am not very careful, I am a toxic person… very depressing.
Do you have people in your life who are draining you of energy? Take responsibility. You cannot change them so adapt your behaviour to suit. Delete, use HOG to let them know how you are feeling, or put up your shield to protect yourself.
Yes, deleting people out of your life is sometimes needed. Some bridges need to be burned….cut-off….ended. However, sometimes that is not possible, the person is your boss or a parent that you want to be in touch with other family members…it gets quite tricky and takes a lot of soul searching to decide who is allowed into your life. Setting boundaries is a series of decisions of who do you trust and how close do you allow them to be. The waters get very muddied when you are told by someone else that the person you consider toxic they don’t consider toxic. Sadly, a person may target one or two individuals to treat them with toxic behavior but be just as nice as can be to other people. Some cases this is an intentional pursuit of crazy making, check out Gaslighting for a better understanding how this works. https://ptsd-acceptingcopingthriving.com/2016/07/14/diversion-tactics/
For myself, rule number one….stop lying especially to myself. Check in with others to make sure I am treating them with respect and understanding. If I feel like I am snappish or out of sorts, sending myself to my room is a grand idea. Yes, I put myself in time out. I am seeing progress because I need to do this less often than when I started time outs for me.
Toxic people exist. Interesting thing is the toxic person don’t consider themselves to be the problem….instead they blame and shame those around them. I read several books about toxic people…some of those books were real eyeopeners. Proceed with caution reading these books may be life changing.
Toxic Parents https://www.amazon.com/Toxic-Parents-Overcoming-Hurtful-Reclaiming/dp/0553381407
How to Hug a Porcupine https://www.amazon.com/How-Hug-Porcupine-Difficult-Personalities/dp/1891114344
PTSD - Accepting, Coping, Thriving 
Toughest part about reading “Toxic Parents” was the questionnaire in the beginning and discovering I still lied to myself first. I couldn’t continue for six months. I had to be sure I answered each question honestly before I could move on. As long as I valued familiarity more than the truth, I was stuck.