Toxic Friendships: Warning Signs

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Having a good friend will make your life more meaningful, they can provide emotional support, reduce loneliness, help you feel happier and more satisfied with life. However, toxic friendships are the opposite, they drain you mentally and physically.

1. What is a toxic friendship?

You may be wondering how to recognize a toxic friendship? Sometimes you also do not have a solid basis to predict and deal with a situation that may occur in a bad friendship or you cannot estimate how much it will affect your life and person. how?

2. Common Actions of a Toxic Friend

A toxic friend often does the following:
Lowers your worth: Friends often joke around and a little goodwill teasing doesn't mean a friendship is toxic, especially if you smiling too. When a friend of yours often underestimates you for everyone around you and makes you feel miserable. Whether they use more subtle tricks or outright insult you, your friendship may not be a healthy one and this friend may be a toxic person who doesn't want to help. share with you that just want to lower your value to raise theirs. Trick: You confidently tell a friend something and the next day, your entire social network will know the details of it. Negative people seem to like spreading secrets, even if you ask them to keep their personal information private. Apologies that lack sincerity: When you call them up and talk about their behavior, they won't sympathize with what you say and they may apologize superficially. Toxic friends usually won't waste their time thinking about what you have to say or your views on matters that are directly related to you. Make you insecure: If you find yourself feeling insecure when playing with friends that you are not sure about, then you should consider and at the same time re-examine your emotional level with this person. Compare yourself to others in all areas: Every individual is unique and there are individual differences. If your friend understands this, they can see your strengths and limitations and they will not have situations where they will compare you with those around you. However, a friendship is not beautiful with a person who always compares you with others and you are pressured and self-deprecating in communication. There are even some friends who want you to change according to their opinion. Always put yourself first and center: Some of your friends can talk about their recent problems for an hour without caring what you think. They always think they should be at the top and center of all relationships. Trying to Change You: A friend isn't ideal if they're trying to change everything about you. A friend who truly understands you will accept both your strengths and your limitations because you are who you are. In some cases where the friend asks you to change yourself because they or they may even encourage you to change, this friend is not necessarily a good friend.

3. The Effects of Toxic Friendships

A toxic friendship can make you feel redundant or abandoned. You contact everyone in the group to make plans, but no one responds to your messages or keeps you informed about the group's plans. They don't seem to want to spend time with you, nor do they want to join you in developing this friendship.
The negative effects of a toxic friendship are:
You feel unsupported: True friends are often supportive when you need it or are in trouble. This support is not always tangible, sometimes it is just encouragement or affection that your friend has for you. However, in the relationship of a toxic friendship, you never feel the support of your friends in the group, you always feel excluded or isolated from the group, not informed about the activities of the group. groups for you, not responding to your messages or not responding to plans you have initiated. You often feel out of balance: People who behave in toxic ways often use manipulation to get what they want. They often leave impressions or actions that do not conform to common sense. Their reactions or overreactions can throw you off balance even further. Sometimes they laugh at everything. This insecurity can seep into other parts of your life, making you short-tempered and easily upset for no reason. Your other relationships take a hit: A toxic friendship may start out in small details but is sure to poison other close relationships. There are a few things you can do to overcome the challenges of toxic friendships:
Set boundaries to maintain friendships; You can actively say end the friendship if you feel the friendship is going in a negative direction. Take the initiative to tell your friend about this. When you encounter an unsatisfactory friendship can make you feel frustrated and scared. But around you, there are still many good friends and you should not close the door, but open your heart and continue once again to find a beautiful friendship.

Ending a toxic friendship can be quite a challenge for yourself, if you find it too difficult, you can seek the support of a psychologist. A psychologist can help you begin to explore your feelings about your friendship and consider options for ending or repairing it.

Please dial HOTLINE for more information or register for an appointment HERE. Download MyVinmec app to make appointments faster and to manage your bookings easily.

Reference source: healthline.com