1. Why YOU became the target
People who sabotage others don’t pick targets randomly. They choose people with certain traits because those traits trigger their insecurity.
You likely became the target because you are:
• Emotionally generous
Which makes you easy to drain.
• Empathetic
They see you will tolerate more than most.
• Strong but patient
Your resilience attracts broken people who want to feed off it.
• Someone who shines during special moments
Birthdays, holidays, Valentine’s Day — these are moments where your warmth, kindness, or presence becomes more visible.
This attracts two types of toxic people:
- The envy-driven saboteur
- The control-driven saboteur
They pick you because your happiness highlights their emptiness.
Your light exposes their darkness.
And instead of healing themselves?
They try to dim you.
2. How to protect your energy during holidays
Special occasions make you vulnerable because they raise expectations — love, connection, warmth. That’s exactly when bitter or chaotic people strike.
Here’s how to protect yourself:
• Lower expectations of THEM, not of the day
Hope for joy from the occasion, not from the saboteur.
• Create “emotional boundaries”
Tell yourself:
“Their mood is not my responsibility.”
• Have a backup plan
A place to go, people to call, a solo ritual — anything that frees you from being trapped in their drama.
• Pre-decide your exit strategy
“If they start X behaviour, I leave the conversation/room/event.”
This turns you from reactive → empowered.
• Don’t explain or defend
Defending your joy only fuels them.
• Pre-fill the day with people who want to celebrate you
The right company is a shield.
3. The emotional profile of people who sabotage others
These people almost always share a set of psychological patterns:
• Chronic insecurity
Your happiness feels like a threat.
• Envy
Not admiration — envy.
They want what you have but believe they can’t achieve it.
• Emotional immaturity
They react like children inside adult bodies.
• Trauma bonding
Their brain associates relationships with chaos, so they recreate chaos.
• Low frustration tolerance
Other people’s joy = unbearable.
• Need for control
They feel powerful when others are upset.
• Fear of irrelevance
Special occasions make them feel invisible.
• Shame
Deep inside they feel “not good enough” — ruining things hides this feeling.
• Poor self-soothing
They cannot calm their own emotions, so they use other people’s reactions to feel regulated.
This isn’t about you being “wrong.”
It’s about them being unhealed.
4. How to stop giving them access to your joy
This is where your power returns.
• Detach emotionally before detaching physically
Tell yourself:
“They behave this way because of them, not because of me.”
This breaks their emotional hold.
• Grey rock the drama
Give them:
- no reaction
- no emotion
- no fuel
Drama collapses when you don’t feed it.
• Don’t share your plans or hopes with them
Protect your joy like you’d protect a flame in the wind.
• Surround yourself with people who celebrate you, not drain you
Joy expands when shared with the right people.
• Rebuild your internal narrative
Their behaviour didn’t mean:
- you deserved it
- you attract bad people
- your celebrations are cursed
It meant they were broken.
• Remove access, not kindness
You don’t need to hate them.
You just need to stop giving them the controls to your emotional world.
