10 amber & red flag behaviors I dismissed or tolerated

"10 Relationship Red Flags I Ignored"

You know that feeling of odd regret that happens after the fact, when you’re able to look at something more objectively?

That’s kind of where I am right now, and it’s also where I’ve been. It’s not an easy place to be.

There are red flags and green flags, but the flags in between are amber: warning signs that might indicate a problem.

ready traffic light near railroad between buildings
Photo by Joe Roberts on Unsplash

Natalie Lue of Baggage Reclaim calls amber flags “Code Amber”:

“If, for whatever reason, the situation feels familiar to previously unhealthy relationships, it’s code amber. Or if, through your involvement, you’re acting without love, care, trust, or respect to and for yourself, or would need to in order to continue, it’s code red.”

At the end of the year starting in November, I begin combing through my journal and looking at past end-of-year reviews. By December, I’m “done”. It’s a draining process that requires a lot of my energy, so I feel a bit like a zombie and step back to take time to myself.

By January, I have a list of behaviors I seek to correct about myself — not instantly, of course…I’ll work on them throughout the year.

This time, I had the unfortunate, yet enlightening experience of realizing what red flag (or amber) behaviors I tolerated from other people. With that comes the realization of how their behavior influenced my own.

I look at relationships as a mirror. I mean, they basically are: The things you dislike about other people might be things you dislike about yourself without realizing it.

Here are some red flag/amber flags

  • I either tolerated or dismissed in other people
  • how I may have exemplified these behaviors myself, and
  • why I consider them amber/red flags in the first place.

1. Treating people outside their group badly

Sometimes, people are SO KIND — as long as you’re in their “circle”. To everyone outside their “group” or “clique”, they’re not so kind.

I realized how much I sought to stay on their “good” side as a result, because I was so scared of being outside the circle??

When I look back at my behavior as a result of this, I notice similarities between how mean girls acted in school when they bullied me. I realize how I became a mean girl as the result of this influence…and I don’t like it about myself.

I also realize how much this demeanor has held me back:

  • Preventing me from networking or collaborating with other bloggers and online business owners by feeling too prideful
  • Made me too self-conscious to stand my own ground and go after what I wanted. I was afraid to be “too confident” because they called overconfidence “pretentious”…so I had little confidence at all
  • Caused me to ignore my needs, limits and discomfort in favor of keeping the peace

2. Compromising myself

This happened a lot during my familial relationships: I would ignore or stifle my own needs in order to keep the peace because I didn’t feel that I could express those needs or maintain my boundaries.

In healthy relationships, boundaries are peace maintenance.

In unhealthy relationships, boundaries are

  • barriers
  • challenges
  • deal-breakers
  • disrespect

Dude, my aunt told me I wasn’t allowed to have boundaries while living in her house! Then, she tried to gaslight me by claiming she never said — when I have a screenshot.

Compromising oneself to “keep the peace” or avoid conflict is known as people-pleasing behavior.

No one truly likes a people-pleaser, because people-pleasers are dishonest with themselves. They mold themselves to whatever they think you want them to be.

As a recovering people-pleaser, I can attest that I didn’t like who I was when I tried to please other people.

Think about it:

  • Boundaries help you maintain your peace, honor your personal limits and create space for you to be yourself.
  • Without boundaries, you wind up chasing peace, exhausting yourself and struggling to coexist as yourself. The line between your boundaries and other people’s behavior is so blurry that it doesn’t even exist.
  • No boundaries or clear lines between you and the other person — not knowing where they end and you begin — is a sign of an enmeshed relationship.

Enmeshed relationships are unhealthy for everyone involved. They definitely need boundaries.

Related: How to create boundaries with family members

3. Claiming to not judge while criticizing everything

Remember how I said relationships are like a mirror?

I had to really step back on this one, ’cause it was a major doozy.

The last two years, I’ve been more aware of how I possibly judge others. It’s been a humbling, often embarrassing situation.

I grew up in a family that criticizes when teen boys decide to grow out a mustache via “jokes”, i.e. comments about their body. About a male reality TV star who tanned and had plastic surgery done, I said, “What’s with his FACE?!”

My housemates didn’t say anything. This is an experience that I look back on and feel embarrassed about.

  • I understand where I was coming from and why I said it.
  • I also know that it was not an appropriate thing to say aloud.

From where I come from, that’s such a normal and okay thing to say. Some relatives would’ve chimed in. However, it’s not the kindest behavior to engage in.

Ever since, I’ve recognized similar behavior in some other people and dislike it. Because toxic behavior is contagious, I need to limit my contact with people who are critical.

But what of the people who claim to not judge people on the outside, only to criticize you in private? Or even other people in their private life. Or behind people’s backs — are they the Regina George of reality?

…do they turn you into the Regina George of reality?

At some point, their criticism will turn towards you. It probably already has, but you’ve ignored it.

This was the case in my experience, but it was hard to see until I started talking to people outside of the dynamic. Sometimes, people outside your regular cluster of “friends” — or even family — have insights about your “cluster” because they’re emotionally detached enough to look at the relationships objectively.

Forming new friendships with a few people had me unconsciously comparing my existing [platonic] relationships with people and realizing how unhealthy or toxic they were.

The new relationships felt healthier and easier — we had boundaries and each respected the others’. That was the catalyst that started it all.

Chat with a trusted friend about your family dynamics and see if they’re truly “normal” or if it’s only normal for your family. Enmeshed family dynamics are “normal” for enmeshed family — but that doesn’t make the normalcy healthy.

4. Couldn’t be a proper emergency contact

Skip this one if you’re going through this list with a coworker in mind — coworkers are never “proper” emergency contacts unless you’re Liza Miller and Kelsey Peters.

I define a proper emergency contact as

someone who would respond to an emergency call, show up and advocate for me with my literal best interests in mind.

They would not explode at doctors or make matters worse.

While I was filling out paperwork for a job, I had to fill in the emergency contact info…and I told my friend an unfortunate truth I realized: No one would come for me.

Even the relative who said I was like her sister has been in a similar situation, wherein I needed someone to come pick me up from the hospital about 30 minutes away after having an allergic reaction, said she couldn’t because she needed to pick up kids — and she couldn’t afterward, because she needed to start dinner.

If she’d been in a similar situation, I would be expected to help out because she needed it.

Realizing I actually had no one was quite isolating and revealing. That epiphany started me on my journey to emotionally detach and look at the relationship more objectively.

5. Conditional kindness

AKA needing to bribe them.

Beware the person who always has a “prize” for doing what they want you to do — they’re conditioning you.

However, I think one needs to beware even more the person who is only there for them if bribed.

I’ve had people in my life who were only kind to me when I provided them with something they wanted or needed. Think

  • reimbursing them for gas AND buying them lunch
  • ordering them a pizza for dinner
  • watching their kids while they go out and have fun (paid or not; different from being a babysitter or nanny for a “stranger” family)

Conditional kindness is when someone is kind only as the result of receiving what they want or like.

Anyone can do it.

It sucks to be on the receiving end of it because by the time you realize, you are forced to acknowledge that you’ve been emotionally abused. You’ve been manipulated or coerced into behaving in a way that pleases someone who likes/loves the POWER they hold over you.

People who engage in conditional kindness seek to steal your autonomy and then make you feel guilty for the mental health consequences of such disempowerment.

6. They like/love the power

Recognizing that someone likes the compliant version of me is really damaging. Establishing boundaries at this point is next to impossible.

It shows up in how people talk to you: “you should”. If this is the norm, it doesn’t sound so bad.

When someone favors power, it says two things:

  1. They have a relationship with the power they have over you, not you specifically. You’re viewed as an object — not a person with autonomy.
  2. They value relationships based on the amount of control they feel they have, which is dependent on how much control they feel entitled to and how compliant you are.

The only way to test this one is to say “no” the next time they expect a “yes”. Or to establish a boundary when they expect you to do something.

  • If the relationship is healthy, they will accept that boundary and the relationship won’t fall apart.
  • If the relationship is unhealthy and they are determined to move towards a healthier relationship, they may at first struggle with your boundaries but understand more as you stand firm with them.
  • If the relationship is toxic and they care most about their control over you, your boundary will “destroy” the relationship.

Establishing boundaries for the first time in relationships is terrifying and difficult. Maintaining boundaries is even harder and, at times, more painful.

However, boundaries are necessary to maintain or move toward healthy relationships.

Sometimes, people will fade away after you set a boundary. Not everyone responds well to new boundaries; some people need time to understand and work through their own emotions to accept your boundaries.

Someone who has a relationship with their control over you has a lot of unresolved trauma of their own to work through — most likely from their childhood — that they might not recognize right now, if ever.

They’re going to react with aggression and manipulation tactics with the goal of getting you to relent and abandon your boundaries. Relationships where power imbalances are present and challenged trigger anxiety and other uncomfortable feelings within the person who seemingly holds the most power.

You taking your power back is, like, “so disrespectful”.

You standing firm in your boundaries is “condescending”.

If someone feels like your setting boundaries disrupts the dynamic where she had control or influence, they might refer to your boundaries as “condescending” to undermine your efforts and assert their position.

7. Constantly managing their reactions

Reactions are immediate, emotional outbursts. They can be joyful or angry — or something in between. Reactions during conflict aren’t so good, because you start reacting to each other — essentially feeding off each other’s reactions.

There’s a major difference between reacting and responding.

A response is a mindful, intentional response to a situation.

When you’re constantly managing someone’s reactions, you’re performing emotional labor to help them work through their emotions. You may even start defending yourself…maybe you don’t manage their reactions and only defend yourself.

Reactive abuse

This can quickly turn into something called “reactive abuse”, which is to where someone else influences you to react in a certain way by setting up the situation.

It’s as villainous as it sounds. I used to think my relatives couldn’t be capable of such calculation, but then they did it to me.

The term “reactive abuse” is so misleading because it sounds like the real victim is whoever is being reacted TO.

However, the real abuser is the person who caused the victim to react in a seemingly abusive way by creating the situation for them to react in. The abuser uses the victim’s reaction as evidence of abuse so they can paint themselves as a victim.

In my case, my relatives read my blog and used it as a weapon. It started as snide, vague comments about things I’d written about — but I didn’t realize the relation until after the fact. It developed into different relatives knowing things I hadn’t told them.

One relative knew something I’d only told another relative. When confronted, my relatives would

  • deny they said anything to someone else
  • insist I must have told the relative myself (gaslighting)
  • ask if I’m okay mentally, since I’m struggling to remember

And then this sort of “blew up” into a convincing narrative that I needed mental help.

Another time, I had this American Eagle sweater with a hole in the elbow. I loved it anyway because it was comfy and turned into a comfort object over the years that I wasn’t ready to lose. I didn’t wear it out in public, so what was the harm?

I wanted to learn how to sew so I could fix it with a colorful patch.

Long story short, my grandmother hid it all over the house, sometimes in the weirdest places, and even through it away at one point. When I asked about it, she said I never had such a sweater. She told other people I was looking for a sweater I didn’t have.

I showed her a picture of me IN the sweater, and she said that I must’ve edited a photo of myself to look like I did have the sweater I supposedly didn’t have.

I ended up having a meltdown over this gaslighting, and she used my reaction to prove that I was mentally unwell and “in desperate need of help”.

DARVO

While we’re on the topic, I want to share something called DARVO that happens in abusive relationship dynamics and doesn’t get enough screen time.

DARVO stands for deny, attack, and reverse victim & offender.

The process:

  1. The abuser denies the abuse ever took place.
  2. When the victim confronts the abuser with evidence, the abuser attacks the victim and/or their family/friends for attempting to hold the abuser accountable for their actions.
  3. The abuser claims THEY are/were the “real victim” in the situation, thereby reversing the position of victim and offender.

The abuser isn’t only “playing the victim”, but victim-blaming as well.

DARVO is especially common in reactive abuse.

8. Constantly defending oneself

A sign you’re in an emotionally abusive relationship is when you feel like you’re constantly defending yourself.

Hurtful behaviors consistently repeat and create a pattern. When you step aside and look at that pattern from a different angle in different lighting, you realize there IS a pattern to the behavior.

“Everyone has behavior patterns.”

Yes — and there are usually signs of growth or improvement. This introspection can go both ways:

  • Non-toxic people can realize this about toxic people
  • Toxic people can realize this about non-toxic people

And even these ways:

  • Non-toxic people can realize this about non-toxic people
  • Toxic people can realize this about other toxic people

And the solutions aren’t always compatible with where each party is at in their lives — that’s a hard lozenge to swallow.

I woke up one day after struggling to fall asleep the night prior and realized I was still tired — not because I didn’t sleep well, but because I couldn’t keep defending myself forever.

People make assumptions about me, and I would feel defensive and…ugh. Like, I don’t have that energy. I can’t keep engaging in the mental gymnastics required to comprehend how TF their brain works.

My boundaries for this:

  • I will step back to take space for myself when a conversation is too emotionally-charged and re-engage when we are both able to approach the discussion with a clear mind and equal footing.
  • I limit my availability to step back and assess how I can change my own behavior to stop enabling the dynamic and move towards a healthier relationship.
  • I don’t need to prove people wrong about me, especially not when they’re making so many assumptions.

9. Hostile attribution bias

Cognitive biases are one of my special interests, for better or worse. It’s led to a lot of introspection into my own behavior — and made me aware of other people’s.

hostile attribution bias is when someone assumes that other people’s actions are meant to hurt or harm them, even when it’s not true. For example, they might think someone bumped into them on purpose when it was actually an accident.

Someone with a hostile attribution bias seeks proof even where it doesn’t exist — especially when the truth is more nuanced and the proof is too factual.

For instance, evidence won’t tell you someone’s intentions. Someone can do something and appear lucid when they’re struggling. This has been the case for me while in autistic burnout and struggling with eating disorder recovery.

I know I can seem coherent despite barely having eaten anything. You can look through my messages or could see me in videos and would think I was pretty “normal” in comparison to how I usually present myself — but that’s because I’m SO GREAT at masking.

Whatever mistake I make during survival mode, though, happens as a result of the survival mode. My brain doesn’t function properly when I’m undereating. Eating disorder recovery is a constant process — not a one-and-done, yay-she-ate-today situation.

I can do things, but I can’t function properly. My brain doesn’t function properly. I barely sleep when I’m undereating.

The biggest mistakes I’ve made in my life have been during survival mode, when I was struggling. People want proof of my behavior, but there’s no proof to give for the consequences of having chronic illnesses.

There’s a lot of shame and grieving around the realization that, Oh shit, I screwed up when I was struggling.

People who have a hostile attribution bias aren’t able to emotionally detach long enough when that bias is triggered to look at a situation and remember I’m human.

It’s hard, but I’ve had to be honest with myself about my limits, create boundaries to honor those limits, and stick to those boundaries.

This is one of them, as unfortunate as it may be.

I’ve realized people like the version of me who doesn’t seem like someone who struggles on the outside — the one who can stick to struggling on the inside, as lonesome as that feels.

For a while, I tried to be that person…but I can’t be her anymore.

10. Inability to separate my professional channels from my personal ones

My blog is my work. It IS a business because I do occasionally make money — and I’m not talking about my Ko-Fi!

Most often, the people who struggle to separate me from my professional channels are relatives or prospective partners.

My Facebook profile is my own personal social media channel.

I’m so totally out of the dating scene right now because I don’t want to need a life partner to approve of or go after what I want — like being a CEO, for example.

So that leaves the relatives.

Family often sees my blog and takes what I post to heart too much (i.e. too seriously, i.e. “omg if you need help…”). Yes, I write about my life — and it’s not always immediately relevant. I write about my life presently and previously.

If I post to social media but don’t respond to them, they have seen it as “omg you’re online but you’re ignoring me!”

Blogging is a special interest that often gives me energy. Some tasks drain my energy, so I do them less. But I can’t just stop blogging because of interpersonal conflict to avoid giving them the wrong impression about my behavior.

I have a real business here that I treat like a business.

Once upon a time, I helped other people manage such insecurities, but…I can’t do that anymore, either, because it holds me back:

  • I feel wary of posting because I don’t want to escalate any conflict
  • I start feeling paranoid, like they’re keeping surveillance on me — and sometimes, they are!
  • Not updating my blog channels negatively affects my blog’s growth
  • They ask me why I’ve made yet another social profile and get upset if I block them from it (keeping surveillance)
  • I’m distracted and feel self-conscious
  • My time isn’t respected because they don’t perceive it as “real” work, so then I second-guess myself

I’m sure I’ll think up more things, but this is a decent liftoff list. I hope it helps you look at your own behavior and relationships more objectively.

Do you have anything else to add? Drop it below in the comments!

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