Red Flags

A Red Flag is a term used to indicate danger, or that one must stop. I know I shouldn’t be explaining the meaning here as we are aware of it but just to add some intensity to it. We all exercise watching for red flags in our lives when they appear, to avoid danger but do we really listen to them when red flag is a person or do we end up ignoring them??

We are all human beings and we crave connection but when to know that this is too much as red flags come in the form of manipulation and mental abuse. How to know when we are being abused may differ in many situations it could be because of lack of trust, being manipulative, gaslighting, narcissism, low self-esteem, anger issues and jealousy. How later on in our lives we continue to say to ourselves you should have known, because of all the signs that were presented from the start but we choose to ignore them.

Recently I met a friend and she told me about a girl who was suffering in her life with such issues. The girl’s husband wanted her to live in a room without TV, mobile or laptop or in other words without any connection to the outside world. Didn’t want her to visit any of her relatives, was insanely jealous and the girl still thought of living with him to save her marriage. So my friend and a couple of relatives intervened and pulled her out of this toxic relationship.

How many more example are there where we know that someone is being toxic at a work place, home, college or in a community but we ignore them hoping that this situation or the person may change one day. But do they really ever change? So it got me thinking what we can do if someone close to us is suffering through a similar situation first by listening and validating their experiences and pointing out red flags to them as the person involved might not be able to see it clearly. By supporting them and by asking to seek professional help.

Photo credit: Pinterest

Inspiration for this post came from a book I’ve recently finished reading “You Should Have Known” by “Jean Hanff Korelitz” and after watching HBO adaptation of the same book titled “Undoing”. Plot slightly differs in both but not sharing the details here for the obvious reason “Spoilers”.