Do you have a friend that puts you down but they expect you to build them up and pick them up?
Do you have a friend that drains the life out of you; mentally, emotionally and sometimes financially?
If you have a friend who makes fun of you, makes snide and cutting remarks to you and about you; they are always draining the joy and life out of you; mentally, emotionally and financially? With a friend like that who needs enemies?
In any relationship there has to be an equal balance between you and the other person. If one person's needs get fulfilled while the other person's needs are being minimized and ignored, then that is a toxic friendship.
Friendships, whether good or toxic, spread throughout all aspects of our lives, having a big impact on our love relationships, our families, our children, our careers, our physical and mental health and even our finances.
Friendships are an important part of our lives, but only if they have positive characteristics to contribute to all areas of our lives. But friendships can also be destructive and toxic to us and our lives as well.
A toxic friendship is unsupportive, draining, unrewarding, smothering, unsatisfying, untrusting and unequal. A toxic friend will stress you out, use you, belittle and abuse you, they are unreliable, and gives nothing back to you and the friendship.
While a toxic friend may not show all of these characteristics, they still display their nasty belittling behavior constantly. There is a difference from the constant nastiness and them just having an occasional bad day, while taking it out on you.
A toxic friend is someone who, after spending time with them, makes you feel bad about yourself; they tend to be critical of you; they make snide remarks about you (as if they are joking); someone who drains you mentally, emotionally and financially. They are not good for you!!!
You cross the line when you go from helping a friend in a time of need, to helping a friend who is always needy but never trying to help them self, and who is destroying you and your friendship for their own lazy selfish personal gain.
"You cannot help those who will NOT help themselves."
If your friend is asking for help and support, that is different than someone who is asking and expecting help and support constantly and who is always needy, draining and hurting you with no concern for you, your family or your friendship. These signs clearly tells you that the person you call a friend is
NO friend but a very toxic person and nothing more than a user, and only out for their own personal gain.
Women tend to be more toxic than men when it comes to friendships. So when your friend turns nasty and always needy, and stays that way, it is time for you to step back, examine the friendship, look at it with an objective mind and start taking control of the friendship. Weigh it out from an objective view point and you may find it is in your own best interest to end that friendship.
You know there is a problem with that friendship when other nontoxic friends and your family points out the bad you display when you are around your toxic friend or after you have spent time with that toxic friend. You should realize that this toxic friend is harmful to you when you are always in a bad mood after spending time with them.
Toxic friends have a way of making you feel trapped in the friendship and that you owe them your friendship and your loyalty as a friend. The toxic friend will make you feel as if you cannot remove yourself from this toxic friendship. When you feel trapped, that you are being taken advantage of and used, and that you can't fix the problem, you should know without a doubt that your toxic friend is controlling and manipulating you, your life and your friendship to the point of destruction. They are using you so why do they care if they destroy you and your life, they are getting what they want.
The feeling of being trapped in this friendship could have to do with the fact you have been friends with this person for a long time, or the friend constantly gives you these pitifully sad needy stories, or they have made you think they have no other place to go or no one to turn to except you, so they have gained control over you and makes you think you have to help them and stand by them. Sorry, but this is just another manipulating and controlling way to trap you into giving them what they want, fulfilling their wants and needs, and to use you for their own personal gain, instead of them getting off their lazy selfish butt and helping themself. Why should they help themself when they can conn a sucker into to supporting them and giving them a free ride? "
User/Looser is all they are or ever will be!!!"
One sign that your friend is toxic, is when you see that this person doesn't mistreat, use or abuse other people, the way they do you.
By staying in a toxic friendship, you are allowing your firend to use and hurt you, but even worse is the fact that you are hurting yourself and others around you that you love and care about.
Your people pleaser personality, your desire to help others, you wanting to be liked by everyone, you wanting to get along with and be friends with everyone, and you not being able to say
"NO", opens you up to attract users, loosers, abusers and toxic people. They know they can play on your sympathy, manipulate you and control you. "You are known as an easy target/mark."
You will pay a price for allowing these type people into your life, especially when you have a toxic friend that leads to a toxic friendship. The longer you are around a toxic person the more toxic your life will become. Even tho you want to be a friend and help your toxic friend, be there for them in time of need and for them to be able to rely on you, stop and think, are you really ready to be used, abused, mistreated and pay the price for keeping this person in your life?
You need to set boundaries for yourself in every area of your life. Start taking better care of yourself, make you and your self-care the most important thing in your life, instead of pleasing your toxic friend. You need to take care of yourself because
NO one else will!!! You need to learn to say
"NO" when someone asks for something that you do not want to give or asks you to do something you don't want to do, and call them out when they are mean to you, critical of you, using you, trying to manipulate or control you.
Talk to your nontoxic friends and your family about your relationship with your toxic friend. People who are not toxic and not involved in this toxic situtaion can give you an objective opinion, point out how they see this toxic friendship is affecting you, your children, your family, and other relationships in your life. Get ready for them to tell the truth and they are only doing it because they care about you and what this toxic person is doing to you. Be ready for them to tell you that you need to end it and cut all ties with your toxic friend, for your own sake and well-being.
Your toxic friend may need professional help; mentally, emotionally, and to mend the damage and get back on the right track with their family. A toxic person usually causes toxic relationships with their mate, children and family, not just with friends. Say to her, "I know you are a good person but maybe you need to seek professional help." Being a good friend means that sometimes you have to point out their problem, instead of ignoring it and continuing to allow them to run-a-muck and intoxicate everyone they come in contact with.
It is difficult to end any type of relationship and it does hurt, but sometimes it is nessacary for our own best interest; mentally, emotionally and financially.
As time goes on, the toxic friendship will continue to become more and more toxic. You will eventually have to end this toxic friendship, and realize you cannot be friends with them at all. As difficult as it may be, sometimes you have to cut this toxic person completely out of your life.
You need balance in every relationship, whether with your mate, your children, your family, your friends or your co-workers. You have to have balance for it to be a healthy relationship. In every relationship each person needs to be happy and feel good about themselves and the other person.
You want to feel good about spending time with your friend, not dread the gloom they bring with them, or the drained feeling of being used by them, or the ridicule they throw at you with their snide and insulting remarks.
Everyone wants to receive affection and support in a friendship. If you have a friend who is always in need, always in trouble, always wants to talk about themself and their problems, then there is
NO balance in this friendship and there is
NO room for you.
There should be some kind of balance in the friendship, which you should be getting your needs met as well as your friend. If not then end it fast, once and for all!!!
Remember:
Toxic means poison or poisonous, even in friendships.
