October 9, 2025 • 46 mins
Friendships should be a source of joy – people who just make life lighter. But not all friendships feel that way. Some leave us drained, insecure, or questioning our worth. And it can be hard to admit when a friendship has become toxic. Learning to recognise when a friendship is no longer healthy, and how to navigate that shift, is a crucial part of protecting your well-being and building a life that feels aligned.
In this episode, we unpack the psychology of toxic friendships: why we hold onto them, what they cost us, and how to create relationships that support rather than drain us.
We explore:
• Why good friendships are so crucial in our 20s
• The 5 types of toxic friendships
• Warning signs of toxicity
• How to recognise positive friendship dynamics
• Why we stay in toxic friendships
• How to manage friendship breakups and the emotional fallout
If you’ve ever felt trapped in a friendship that leaves you more exhausted than supported, this episode is for you.
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Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast
For business: psychologyofyour20s@gmail.com
The Psychology of your 20s is not a substitute for professional mental health help. If you are struggling, distressed or require personalised advice, please reach out to your doctor or a licensed psychologist.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
the podcast where we talk through some of the big
life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
mean for our psychology.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to
the podcast, new listeners, old listeners. Wherever you are in
the world, it is so great to have you here.
Back for another episode as we, of course break down
the psychology of our twenties. When we think of friendships,
I'd hope most of us think of these very glorious relationships,
(00:46):
like the reason the world spins the most glorious moments
of laughter and conversation, and like someone who you don't
have to explain yourself to, and like ultimate comfortability. Friendship
is obviously supposed to be kind of a place of
like ease and safety and joy. But sometimes, you know,
(01:11):
let's just say it very simply, it just isn't. Sometimes
a friendship does start to feel more like an obligation
or a drain or a source of anxiety. Unfortunately, for
those who have you know, those of us who have
been in this situation, some friendships can become very toxic
and show patterns of control and disrespect and manipulation that
(01:34):
do a number on us really start to chip away
at our self esteem, and that brings me to the
focus of today's episode. Obviously, we are talking about toxic friendships,
specifically the five types of toxic friendships that you will encounter,
not just in your twenties, but I think in life
in general. I obviously love focusing on like the beauty
(01:55):
of friendship and like how wonderful it is and how
much it brings us. And I'm kind of always a
little bit bummed to talk about the less positive sides
of friendship, but it does need to be acknowledged. We
are so good at talking about red flags and relationships
scigns of toxic or narcissistic partners, but platonic relationships are
(02:17):
just as important and therefore can sometimes be just as
difficult and harmful. And in your twenties, I think this
is even more complicated. Friendship means so much to us
in this decade, but also your life is rapidly changing,
and sometimes our friendships don't match up with what else
is happening in our life. Maybe you've had or you've
(02:39):
found success, and suddenly this relationship has become competitive or
your friends made new friends, and now it's one sided.
Now it's rooted in criticism. Now you're no longer supporting
each other. Here's the truth. Not every friendship is meant
to last forever. Yet we so often hold on because
friendship is wrapped up in these ideas of loyalty and longevity.
(03:01):
And I think at the end of the day, hope
we all have this image. We've all talked to our
friends about being in each other's weddings, knowing each other's children,
being in the nursing home together. And so when that
becomes obvious that that's not going to be the future,
it can feel like a betrayal. But sometimes it is
absolutely necessary and quite frankly worth it to acknowledgement of
(03:24):
friendship is no longer suiting us, or when it has
turned toxic. So today we're going to talk about that,
the five types of toxic friendships that we might encounter,
how to recognize them, how to know when you're in one,
how to navigate getting out of one, especially when you're
in like a broader friendship group, and when it is
(03:45):
absolutely time to walk away, time to say just goodbye,
and how to do that. There's quite a lot. I've
realized there's a lot to talk about, but I am ready.
I hope you are too. Without further ado, let's get
into it. If you think back to being a child,
(04:08):
you know your world was relatively small. Like the people
who mattered to you are, like your family, and like
the neighborhood kids, or like the kids you go to
school with. They weren't really chosen, they're just kind of there.
Same thing in adolescents, maybe they matter a little bit more,
but it's definitely tied up in like school and proximity.
Your twenties are very different. Everything kind of splinters. You
(04:30):
meet so many new people. This is the decade where
you truly choose a lot of those meaningful relationships, and
those choices make a huge difference. You might be living
away from family, living in a new city where you
don't know anyone. You're figuring out who you are, and
your friends become the scaffolding for that new sense of self.
(04:54):
It's why this decade gets called the friendship decade, mainly
mainly by me, but I'm trying to get it to
catch se. You know, you're not tied down by the
same responsibilities that take over later on like marriage, kids,
big career investments, big financial investments, but you also aren't
like the main relationship you have isn't the one you
have with your family anymore. Friends step into this empty
(05:17):
space left by family, and before you know, kids or
a major life partner steps in and they become everything
to us. They become like family. I know that sounds
so cringe, but we know that's the truth. We know
that they are more important in this decade than any other,
and there's good reason for this. A twenty twenty three
study published in Frontiers and Psychology actually demonstrated that adult
(05:42):
friendships are the strongest predictor of life satisfaction for young adults,
even more than career success, finances or romantic status. That's crazy.
It means that you know, the person sitting across from
you at the cafe right now, or the person in
your group chat has more of an influence on your
(06:02):
well being and whether you're going to be happy than
almost anything else right now. A healthy friendship gives us
psychological safety. First of all, it gives us a space
where we can be confused, and we can be messy,
and we can be ambitious, or we can be vulnerable
without fear of being judged, and I think they also
give us a mirror. You know, we really see ourselves
(06:22):
reflected in how our friends respond to us. When a
friend tells us they're proud of you, you know, that
gives you a boost. When they tell you to kind
of pull your head in that humbles you. You see
yourself through them, and friendship, which don't think a lot
of people know, actually regulates us biologically. The neuroscientist Ruth
(06:43):
Feldman has conducted a lot of research in this area,
and her work has shown that close friends that spend
time together their physiological states literally sync up. Their heart
rates align, their bodies release oxytocin in tandem, their brain
activity shows similar patterns. This is a phenomenon called biobehavioral synchrony,
(07:06):
and it explains why being near a trusted friend canon
will significantly lower your stress levels. I have this with
a couple of my friends, but I'm really thinking about
my best friend. I surprised her recently in Tasmania, which
is like this tiny island off of Australia where she lives,
and every time I'm around her, we always talk about
(07:28):
how calm and coregulated we feel like everything just feels
lighter and easier and softer. In other words, you know,
really great friendships don't just make life enjoyable, they actually
make you a more stable version of yourself. So that's
why when a friendship tips into like unhealthy territory, the
(07:49):
damage can feel so destabilizing because in essence, you know,
you're not just losing a relationship, You're losing a coregulator,
you're losing a mirror, You're losing a source of strength.
So with that in mind, let's dive into these five
types of toxic friendships to look out for. Firstly, I
want to just give a brief caveat what do we
mean when we actually say by toxic. I don't think
(08:12):
that toxic describes a person. I'm using it to describe
a relationship. I fully believe this. I don't think that
anyone can be toxic. We all have character traits and
flaws that someone else won't like, but other people won't
have an issue with. There are some people that maybe
are more malicious and manipulative than others. It doesn't mean
(08:34):
that they are inherently a poisonous person. I also believe
people inherently have a capacity to change that's my personal belief.
There are things in my past that I'm not entirely
proud of. There are moments that I have let someone
down and I've done the wrong thing, absolutely, Like I
can remember these times when I didn't think about someone
(08:56):
else's feelings and that really hurt them. But I know
I have grown and I've acknowledged my role and my actions,
and that has really helped me have this new perspective
for friends that have hurt me in the past. It's
not always fair to judge someone based on the last
impression you had of them five years ago, ten years ago.
We change so much in that time, especially if you
(09:18):
were like under the age of thirty when it happened.
I think only true sociopaths can be labeled as toxic,
and even then, some of them are very functional and
they learn empathy, and they are no different to you
and me in terms of how they act in friendships.
So what we are referring to here is toxic dynamics
(09:43):
and the friction that can be created between two people
because of how one person is acting another person is
responding their environment, and how their personalities may be clashing.
So I just want to clear that up at the top.
That being said, let's intro reduce the first type of
toxic friendship. The competitor for this type of friend or friendship.
(10:10):
Everything feels like they're trying to one up you. You
got a new job, Well that doesn't compare at all
to their promotion that they had last month. You just
ran five k, Well they're training for a ten k,
so good luck with that. If you've gone to London,
they went to Paris. Each time you share successes or
(10:31):
something you're proud of, their knee jerk reaction is to
match it, beat it, or downplay it. Even suffering can
become a contest. I don't know if you've experienced this,
but you know what that one friend where if you're stressed,
they're more stressed. If they're hurting worse. If they've been
through a breakup, well you should hear about their breakup
from five years ago. It was awful. This isn't just
(10:54):
annoying over time. It really erodes your ability to share
anything with them because why why would you? Why would
you if they're just going to turn it into a competition.
The root of this is usually social comparison, right, and
it comes from an insecurity in them. They see something
in you that threatens their obviously quite weak sense of self,
(11:14):
and so they have to engage in a very specific
form of social comparison called downward social comparison to make
themselves feel better by making you, positioning you as inferior
to them. But it often means that you start to
censor yourself. And one of the best parts of friendship
is sharing your achievements and also sharing your hard moments.
(11:37):
If you can't do that, what's the point, you know,
what's the point of genuinely never being able to communicate
anything good or bad about your life. So that's number one,
that's the competitor. Secondly, there's the friend who always always
(11:57):
has something to say about what you're doing. This next
type of toxic friend we're gonna call the critic or
the controller. You tell them you're trying a new hobby.
They roll their eyes, They tell you it's you know,
it's actually really bad for the environment, that you won't
stick with it, that that's kind of lame. You're dating
(12:18):
someone new, Well, they pick apart their flaws. They talk
about how terrible they might be for you, how you
could do better at first, maybe you'll laugh, maybe you'll
see them as being protective. Over time, though this like
steady drip of criticism, starts to kind of poison everything else.
(12:40):
This can also sometimes transform into straight up belittlement, whereby
they act as if they always know best. They make
you feel smaller, like your decisions are never gonna be right,
they're never gonna be good enough. And again, what's tricky
is that this is often disguised as care right. They
might phrase it as I just don't want to see
(13:00):
you get hurt, or I'm only telling you this because
I care. But if they actually cared, or they were
mature enough to show they cared properly, it would actually
build you up and give you the confidence to act
in your own way, something like, Hey, I support you
no matter what, but have you considered this? Or you
(13:23):
do what's best for you. You know I'll always be
there if you need me, but have you considered this
other thing? Do you see like the shift in framing here.
They would be delicate about it. They would be gentle.
That is what a friend should do. And sure you
know you actually don't want a friend who is always
going to agree with you or lie to you. I
(13:44):
always say, the best sign of a friendship is someone
who's going to be ruthlessly honest with you when it
is helpful. But if you always disagree with someone in
every single thing, and if it's always like a power struggle,
why are you even friends? Surely there's someone better. In fact,
(14:06):
their constant criticism is often a way to try and
keep you small and control you and to assert dominance,
according to the Gotman Institute. The Gotman Institute is basically
like one of the leading marriage and relationship expert groups
in the world. They say that criticism is one of
their four horsemen of the relationship Apocalypse. It is like
(14:29):
one of the biggest signs of relationship breakdown, according to them,
and it sits alongside contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling, and it's
damaging because of how it breaks down trust in a
relationship and put someone on edge constantly. Criticism is also
a sign that contempt will build on your end, or
(14:49):
defensiveness will occur, and eventually you will get to that
stonewalling stage where you just don't care anymore. If they're
going to give their opinion and you don't want to
listen to it, why listen to anything? They have to say. Okay,
so so far we've had the competitor and we've had
the critic. We are going to take a short break now,
but when we return, let's introduce you to our three
(15:13):
remaining toxic friendships. Stay with us. Okay, so we have
two down, three to go. Are you ready? After the
competitor and the critic, we have the gossip. I know
we've all met one of these people before. The funny
(15:34):
thing about them is that they can actually be really magnetic.
At first, you know, they are often the ones who
always know what's happening. They seem kind of popular because
they know everything in everyone's business. Being close to them
can feel like being on the inside. They're often very charismatic.
But eventually you realize, hey, I don't think they've talked
(15:55):
about themselves once. They only talk about other people, or
they're about other people, or maybe in between all the gossip,
they start asking you really personal, really intrusive questions about
your life. And then you kind of have this realization like, huh,
if they're talking about everyone else like this, they're probably
(16:16):
talking about me too. I don't think that I'm going
to be excluded from this. I'm fairly sure, like I'm
going to be a target that breaks trust, and once
that trust is broken, I think it's nearly impossible to
feel safe about opening up again. Friendship thrives on confidentiality
and on the belief that your vulnerabilities are held close
(16:40):
and careful, so when those get broadcast, any foundation of
intimacy like falls apart. I've also found that with the gossip,
they tend to use others secrets as social currency, like
as a form of money, Like they're a way to
gain power for themselves, And so when you're the kind
(17:00):
of person who they're sacrificing, like, it doesn't feel good
your secrets are being used to bolster their ego. Eventually,
all of that kind of social secret mining, it's gonna
turn on them. It's gonna turn on you. I promise
you that you will realize one day that someone knows
something about you that you did not tell them, who
told them that the gossip. Additionally, I also just think
(17:24):
it gets pretty boring talking about other people all the time,
and it feels kind of nasty. You feel the empathy
and guilt in your body. It's not to say that
none of us, all of us like shouldn't be gossiping.
It's actually a very natural human thing. But afterwards, I
don't know about you, I feel pretty gross about it,
and I always feel the need to be like, oh,
you know, but they're such a good person. But this
(17:47):
so if your friends with someone who's always gossiping and
doesn't seem to have that same reaction, sometimes it could
say something deeper about your values. You kind of end
up thinking, like, how in the world do you have
this stamina for this? What else are they actually even
interested in? What do we even talk about? What's left
in their own life? Nothing? It's not necessarily that your
(18:09):
secrets are being shared. It might just be that this
friendship is kind of boring. This next toxic friendship is
actually pretty hard to spot, and this is the victim
or the manipulator. The victim is always wronged. Their boss
is always unfair to them, their partner is always cruel,
their other friends are neglectful. At first, you might feel
(18:32):
bad for them, of course you would. Of course you
would want to believe them. You know, how awful are
these people treating them? This is so terrible. You want
to show them support. But somewhere along the line you
do begin to notice how your needs never really make
it into the conversation. And another thing you may notice
is that they never seem to take responsibility for their actions.
(18:54):
Of course, there are always going to be times when
someone needs more support than others within a friendship. It
can't always be a fifty to fifty split. But if
nothing ever resolves, even after your advice, your assistance, your comfort,
and it's always a new person for them, well, I
don't know. I just don't believe one person's luck is
(19:16):
ever that bad. What might happen is that when you
finally set a boundary and you say you know, I
can't hang out, I'm super exhausted, or you mentioned that
you feel a little bit unheard or you don't feel great,
they flip the script. They might say something like, well,
I guess I'm a bad friend. I guess I'll just
leave you alone, then leaving you feeling guilty wondering if
(19:38):
you were too harsh, even though all you did was
put a boundary in place. In the most extreme cases,
I do think this sometimes veers into gaslighting. They might
turn the narrative so that you're the one at fault
for their unhappiness. You become the villain they tell all
their other friends about, maybe converging in a sense into
(19:59):
the gossip as well. This constant cycle of trying to
do the right thing, guilt, self doubt, and then exhaustion
is super draining and it can leave you kind of
unsure of where you stand. You don't want to let
them down, but you also want to respect yourself. I
think of all the five toxic friendships, this is the
(20:22):
hardest one to walk away from. Finally, we have the
rarest type of all, and that is the friend who
was just downright meat. They are the combination of competitive controlling,
the gossip, and the victim. Sometimes you might struggle to find,
like literally any redeeming quality about them. Simply put, they
(20:45):
are just not very nice to you. They make you
the punchline of the jokes in the group setting. They
always seem to ruin a perfectly nice time. They are
always hostile. They betray you, they flirt with your partner,
they out a secret about you, They sabotage you. This
person may be a friend, I also think that they
can sometimes be a family member, a sibling, a colleague.
(21:09):
To put it frankly, like you can tell they don't
like you, but for some reason, like they end up
remaining in your life, maybe because you run in the
same circles, maybe because you know your lives are so intertwined.
Maybe they're family. Maybe they are super nice sometimes, but
their hostility is also super obvious. I think all of
(21:30):
these toxic friendships can leave scars. This kind in particular, though,
I think, can cause attachment wounds very similar to that
of a romantic relationship, because it can feel like a
full on affront. Before we talk about the question you're
probably all asking right now, why don't we just walk away,
Let's just quickly talk about how you can spot if
(21:52):
you are in a friendship with with this kind of dynamic.
One of the hardest parts of recognizing a toxic friendship
is that the red flags don't always look obvious. It's
not like someone is being like, wohoo, don't be friends
with me. I'm gonna treat you terribly. And it's not
like when a partner has been awful to you. You know,
(22:14):
if they've cheated or when nasty to you. It's pretty
clear cut, and we talk about it openly. Like I said,
we talk about red flags and relationships all the time,
but with friends it's a lot more subtle. It's the
way you shrink a little when you see them come
in the room. It's the feeling of relief when your
plans get canceled. It's noticing that after hanging out with them,
(22:37):
you feel worse about yourself, not better. So a concept
we might use to refer to this is what we
call emotional residue. Even when the conversation is over, even
when the hangout is done, that negative, sticky residue lingers.
You feel gross, you replay what you said, you question
(22:58):
if you overreacted, you feel really drained, and over time
that residue actually accumulates as well. It's not just emotionally draining.
This actually has a huge impact on how we feel
in our bodies. Studies on social stress show that difficult
relationships elevate cortisol, they impair sleep, they weaken immunity. One
(23:21):
such study, published in twenty twelve by the University of
Utah shows the extent of this impact. So in the study,
this involved one hundred and thirty six adults, and they
looked into their relationships with friends, with family, with acquaintances,
and they measured both the positive and negative feeling associated
with these bonds. The researchers were basically looking into whether
(23:43):
there was any difference in the length of the participants telomeres.
Telomeres are basically the protective caps we have on our chromosomes. Basically,
they protect our DNA from damage. They're like helmets for
our DNA. It's kind of technical, but basically, the shorter
(24:04):
the telomere, the higher the risk of chronic diseases and
a shorter lifespan. And they wanted to see is there
a link between positive and negative relationships and teleomere length.
What they found was that for the participants with a
higher number of relationships that had both really high highs
and really low lows, basically a toxic friendship, the shorter
(24:27):
the length of the telomeres. Let's dive into these findings
a little bit more. They basically suggest that these participants
who had been in turbulent up and down relationships had
a higher risk of chronic conditions and stress reactivity compared
to people who had obviously all great relationships, but interestingly
(24:50):
also people who just had a lot of pretty terrible relationships.
According to the findings of this study, what really meant
added here What really impacted health and teleomere length was
the intensity of the switch up and was the kind
of toxicity meter of these relationships. It was the fact
(25:15):
that there were some good parts and some bad parts,
this emotional push and pull that was dangerous. That means
that even when the friendship isn't necessarily all bad, the
inconsistency itself in those friendships is what can take a toll.
So to contrast that, let's talk about what a good
(25:35):
friendship feels like. And I know this feels kind of silly,
but I actually think this is really really fascinating, and
I've never seen anyone talk about this before. In the nineties,
researchers Meddlesine and Abbot proposed a model of six key
qualities of strong friendships. These included stimulating companionship, so engaging
(25:56):
in enjoyable activities together help prevent giding each other with
support and guidance, intimacy so sharing personal things with each other.
They also included a reliable alliance, so trust, emotional security,
and self validation. Basically, you encourage each other to feel
(26:20):
good about each other and to maintain a positive self image.
That means a good friend celebrates you instead of competing
with you, they encourage you instead of criticizing you. They
listen to you, they spend time with you, they don't
gossip about you. Not only does the research suggest that
those who have more of these good quality, strong friendships
(26:41):
tend to rate their life satisfaction and their well being
more highly, but a follow up study in twenty twenty
two found that having these strong friendships is almost protective
against stress. So that study, it was done in Austria
and it focused on university students during the pandemic, and
(27:03):
it found that when they had good friendships, they actually
suffered less long term. Obviously, like, that's a different time now,
but I still think this plays out on a lot
of other scales. You know, they are what keeps us strong.
And so if you've got someone who secretly wants to
be your worst enemy and secretly, like secretly wants to
(27:26):
see you fail, hmm, it's not they're pretty, it's not
gonna help, Like it's hard to notice them, but their
impact is felt. So if it's so clear that these
toxic relationships harm us, why do we stay? This is complicated.
(27:48):
I've asked myself this question many times. So let's talk
about it after this short break. I've talked about this
on the podcast just a few times throughout the many years.
But when I was a kid, I was pretty badly bullied.
When I was in primary school, I remember once like
(28:09):
this group of friends that I really liked. Every weekend,
I would get my parents to call them on like
the home phone to have like play dates on the weekends,
and they would always be like, oh sorry, Like the
parents would be like, oh sorry, she's busy. Sorry, they're busy.
And then on Monday, I would like find out that
they were all hanging out because they'd tell me. One time,
(28:32):
I remember when I was in high school, I was like,
to my friends, let's do Secret Santa. And they were
all like, that's such a stupid idea. And then on
the last day of school, I was riding my bike
home through the park next to our school and I
saw them. They're all like exchanging gifts, and they like
saw me, and they laughed and they like ducked down.
(28:53):
I stayed friends with those people until I left the state.
Why did I do that? Part of it is history.
If you've been friends for years, you're reliant on them
for at least some sense of who you are, or
just to not feel alone. Cutting ties feels very difficult.
You have woven them into your life, and so to
(29:14):
untangle that can feel impossible and very very scary and
very isolating. The Fear of being left out, the fear
of rocking the boat in the broader group, fear of
not having anyone else like that's a big factor. Social
belonging is a really important human need, and we have
been wired to protect it at all costs. But maybe
the most significant reason we're drawn back into this time
(29:36):
and time again is what that study said earlier. The hope,
the up and down relationships. Toxic friendships are never one
hundred percent bad. There are flashes of joy and kindness
and nostalgia. Every single person has redeeming qualities. Psychologists have
a name for this. It's called intermittent reinforcement. When good
(29:57):
and bad are mixed kind of unpredictably, the bond becomes
even harder to break because you keep chasing the next
good moment and you hope that it will be enough
to outweigh the bad. When you see this play out
in gambling, in addiction, toxic romance relationships, the push the pull,
the cycle of chasing the highs. It's not weakness that
(30:20):
keeps us stuck, but actually a very human desire to
preserve the connection. And this kind of cycle makes it
really hard to walk away because how do you know
when someone's had too many chances? It's a very agonizing question.
The truth is, I'm not going to be able to
give you an answer. There isn't a universal number. Instead,
(30:42):
the better question to ask is what have they already
done with the chances you have given them? Because the
fact that you're considering the question means it's not a
one off event. It's likely become a pattern. So when
you bring up your feelings, do they or do they
dismiss you? Do they take responsibility or do they shift blame?
(31:07):
Do they make changes or do they repeat it again
and again? And if this was a romantic partner, would
you tolerate this pattern? Healthy relationships aren't perfect. They're not
defined by the absence of conflict, but the ability to
repair this conflict. This is known in psychology as rupture
and repair theory. A lot of really long lasting relationships
(31:31):
have really hard moments. The fact that you band together
and fix it and repair it shows love and commitment.
If someone shows willingness to repair after a rupture through apologies,
change behavior, consistency, Yeah, they may deserve another chance. But
if every chance is met with empty apologies, excuses, or
(31:51):
if they just go straight back to what they have
done before, the question may become not how many chances
should I give them? But why am I still offer them?
If you find yourself at this point, it's very difficult.
Friendships aren't built on contracts or ceremonies like marriages or jobs.
They can fade in and out, and they can evolve silently,
(32:14):
and that can make knowing when to walk away very confusing.
So I'm gonna outline some steps that you can take
to address a toxic friendship, starting with this first one.
If you feel physically and emotionally safe, clarity is always
the first step. It's very easy to fantasize about just disappearing,
(32:35):
but sometimes what feels like toxicity can actually stem just
from a lack of awareness. They just don't know how
you're feeling, and trust me, ghosting isn't a good solution.
I've done that to a friend I really didn't think
I could repair things with for a lot of reasons,
and despite that, I really regret it. I regret it
actually a lot. At the time, it felt right, but
(32:56):
I wish that we'd had a chance to maybe just
maybe been able to hash things out. Of course, when
we approach someone with accusations like you're always so negative
or you're such a bad friend, they're gonna get defensive,
they're gonna turn it back on you. But when we
frame our concerns around our own feelings, we leave the
door open for again repair. That might sound like, you know,
(33:20):
when you cancel last minute, I feel unimportant. I know
you don't mean it that way, but this makes me
feel like I don't matter. The focus is on the
impact it had on you, not their character, and this
shifts the conversation from blame to possibility. Sometimes people just
don't realize how their behavior lands. They just don't know.
(33:43):
They're used to interacting with people in a different way,
and in those cases, like a simple conversation can actually
change the entire dynamic. Let me tell you this, When
you are overwhelmed, angry, frustrated, lashing out is the easiest
thing you can do, but oh my gosh, in the
long term, a lot better to handle things maturely. And
(34:04):
I'm telling you, like when you get to a moment
where you realize, hey, like I handled this so much
better than I would have before, Like I'm so proud
of talking with them about this. You feel great about yourself,
Like you kind of even want to talk to them
about it and be like, hey, we handle that so well,
Like look at us growing as people. It's a good moment.
(34:25):
Really start there. I employ you to start at that
point of clarity. If the behavior doesn't change, that's when
boundaries come in. Here's something worth emphasizing. Boundaries are not
meant to be punishments. They are actually instructions for how
you want to be treated. There is a famous quote
that I love that says boundaries are the distance at
(34:47):
which I can love you and still love myself simultaneously.
I think that's profound. They're not wars to like shut
people out. They're actually guidelines that allow you to stay
connected if the other person is willing to respect them.
A boundary is I can't keep talking to you if
you make me feel judged afterwards, or when you make
(35:07):
those jokes in front of other people, I need to
step back. The boundaries need to be specific. There needs
to be cause and effect. You did this, I'm responding
this way. They cannot be like vague demands to like,
you know, try harder with me or be nicer. They
need to be specific. I need you to make plans
with me. I need you to honor out commitments. I
(35:28):
need you to speak positively about me around other people.
If the person in question then decides to disregard these boundaries,
it is really important to act. It's the hardest part.
And it doesn't mean like a dramatic ultimatum or a fight.
It can simply mean reducing how much time you spend together,
or choosing not to share vulnerable information, or letting the
(35:52):
friendship kind of just move to the background a little bit.
A boundary is a contract. If you say a boundary
is a non negotiable, but then allowed it to be
crossed without consequences, you know, it doesn't really work. It
just kind of becomes like a suggestion. So you need
to be ready to teach people sometimes how to treat you,
(36:12):
which everyone knew. But again, sometimes people just are used
to different things. They have a different way of seeing things,
they have a different culture, they have a different personality.
So make sure that you have a clear boundary that
may actually help them treat you better. I would also
advise that you lean on other friends for their perspective,
specifically ones that you trust. We've talked about how friends
(36:36):
can be mirrors to ourselves. Toxic friends can warp that mirror,
make it feel like we're being unreasonable or selfish. Talking
it through with supportive people gives you that reality check.
It allows you to practice possible responses in advance as well.
Toxic dynamics often come with gaslighting or deflection, so rehearsing
(36:57):
how your stay calm can really help. For example, if
you know they're gonna say like you're overreacting, practice saying
to a friend, I hear you, but this is still
important to me, And I think maybe most importantly denote
give yourself permission to step away if you don't want
to be there anymore. Friendships a valuable, not all of
(37:20):
them are worth preparing. Sometimes the healthiest thing is simply
just to let nature take its course, just let the
person fade out. That might not always be possible. Something
I always get asked is like, I have this terrible
person that I'm friends with, but we are in a
(37:44):
friendship group. We have all these friends all these connections,
It's gonna get messy. What do I do? I think
in those moments, the goal shifts from ending the friendship
to managing the dynamic. I'm gonna be honest, it's gonna
be awkward. It's gonna be a little bit uncomfortable at times,
(38:06):
purely because the dynamic has changed. But I promise you
you can handle discomfort. It's okay. But it is really
important to avoid trying to recruit the whole group and
ask them to take sides. This is like a very
natural instinct. Do not force people to see your perspective.
They will naturally form their own opinions. Your job isn't
(38:29):
to convince them. Don't avoid the situation either. Avoidance can
often isolate you more than the toxic person ever did,
and it can be part of their toolkit. Instead going
with a game plan, you will stay polite, You will
keep things neutral. You will focus your energy on the
(38:50):
friends who support you, because if they are still good friends,
they can actually be friends with two people at once.
I know this is really hard sometimes because you're like,
how do you not see what they've done to me
and how awful they were to me? Just trust me,
they're gonna figure it out. They will figure it out.
I one of my best friends had this falling out
(39:14):
with a mutual friend of ours, and I stayed friends
with this other person for a little while because it
was kind of uncomfortable for me to walk away. It
wasn't my fight. Oh, she didn't say anything. She was
great to me about it. She was like, you stay
friends with them. And I figured out exactly after a
while what had caused their friendship breakup. You know, soon enough,
(39:34):
it always happens. This is is advice I gave to
my friend, like literally the other day, who was dealing
with like a big group dynamic where one person obviously
doesn't like her but hasn't said anything Directly. Approach those
interactions like nothing is wrong. If they haven't confronted you,
even though you know they're talking about it behind your back,
(39:56):
it's still none of your business. I need you to
use every fiber in your body to be kind, to
be normal to you. There is no problem. If they
want to bring a problem to you, great, but that's
their business. You are showing the group, you're showing yourself
that you are bigger than the drama. That is the
(40:17):
most powerful way that you can manage the situation. Now,
let's talk about the friendship breakup. I feel like we've
kind of been snaking our way to this moment where
the explosion happens. We know that friendship breakups do not
get the same attention as romantic breakups, and yet we
know they can be just as hard. It's important that
(40:40):
you allow yourself to be sad about this. You were
allowed to grieve this person and what the future you
really thought you had with them. It's so romantic, because
friendship is romantic at times, you do imagine a future,
but I think it's really refreshing just to see what
space that opens up for you. Toxic friendships take up
(41:02):
a lot of energy, They take up a lot of
time and space in our mind. So when they fade,
that space is suddenly yours again. Use it. Text that
old friend that you've lost touch with, Join a book club,
join a running group, do a trivia night, do a
pottery class, dive back into your hobbies and the things
(41:26):
that make you feel like you again. Honestly, it's like
a breakup. After a breakup, you've got to kind of
curate your social life all over again, and that means
you get to choose what feels good, what energizes you,
what you want more of. Losing a friendship knocks your
confidence so hard. It's so conflicting you know what's for
the best. You feel like a bad person implicitly, sometimes
(41:51):
you have regrets, So just investing all of that energy
back into yourself can really help. It's also so empowering
to celebrate the upgrade. And I don't want to come
across as cold or dismissive or insensitive, but they're kind
of losing the better person here. They're losing you. You know,
(42:12):
they're losing the person that gave them a bunch of chances,
that talked them through their behavior, that celebrated them, that
loved them. For whatever reason, the friendship didn't work out.
You guys didn't gel, So that doesn't mean that you
didn't try your hardest and that you're not still at catch.
(42:32):
You're not losing in this situation. You cannot be friends
with every single person you've ever met for the rest
of your life. That is actually again. It's again when
you realize that someone can't keep up with your emotional bandwidth,
can't keep up with you, doesn't care about either way
(42:52):
you care about them as someone who had so many
experiences when they were a teenager and when they were younger,
when they were in university where they would try very
very hard. I would always try so hard to be
the friend that everyone wanted to be friends with, and
I would put so much into my friendships, and I
would love them so much and do the exciting things
(43:12):
with their birthdays and shout dinners and you know, be
at their runs and celebrate them. Some people just don't
appreciate that. And the thing is is that I waited
a long time, and now I have the people that do,
so I can tell you that they're out there. I
was talking to like a family member of mine who's
(43:34):
ait a lot younger than me, who's like going through
a really hard time at school, and I just was like,
I totally get where you're coming from. I spent like
the first two decades of my life without any real friends,
with like one real friend, and then suddenly, like I
entered my mid twenties and everyone came out of the woodwork.
(43:59):
Everyone was I suddenly just met these amazing people. And
the same way I didn't settle in a romantic relationship,
I didn't settle when it came to my friendships either.
And now I just feel like I have been rewarded
for my suffering and for my times when I didn't
get what I wanted in terms of friendship. And I
(44:21):
truly believe that that happens for people, and that holding
out for good friends is just again like holding out
for good relationships. So I'm wishing you the best of luck.
I hope this episode has brought you some clarity when
it comes to these relationships. I hope it has given
(44:42):
you a sense that stepping away it's not necessarily a
bad thing, is not and does not make you a
bad person, and that yeah, those people exist and they suck,
and it's okay to like not want to be friends
with them anymore. So I hope this episode helped. I
hope you learned something from it. I want to thank
(45:04):
out wonderful, wonderful researcher Libby Colbert for her contributions to
this episode. If you have made it this far, I
want you to leave a little comment down below showing
some love for a non toxic friend in your life.
Let's show people that they still exist. I want to
shout out my friend erin Aarin is like the other
(45:27):
member of this podcast. I feel like if you've been
around for a while, you will have heard her name
quite a few times. She's been on the podcast, like twice.
I had such a great weekend with aerin last weekend
when I went and surprised her, So I just want
to give a shout out to her. You know, we
didn't become friends till I was like twenty two, and
I've never felt so much love from another person who
(45:49):
I was not like, either a family member of or dating.
So those friends do exist, and I want to give
her a shout out, and hopefully you can give a
shout out to someone like that in the comments blow
feel coold to do so, make sure that you are
following along or subscribed wherever you are listening, whether that
is on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, the iHeartRadio app. Make sure
(46:10):
to leave a five star review if you feel cold
to do so, and follow us on Instagram. At that
Psychology Podcast, someone was asking me the other day why
it's not the Psychology of your Twenties. I'm feeling sure
either that name was taken or it was just too long.
So there you go, there's your answer. That Psychology Podcast
it is that until next time, stay safe, be kind,
(46:32):
be gentle to yourself in the face of maybe a
toxic friendship. I believe in you, and we will talk
very very soon.
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
the podcast where we talk through some of the big
life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
mean for our psychology.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to
the podcast, new listeners, old listeners. Wherever you are in
the world, it is so great to have you here.
Back for another episode as we, of course break down
the psychology of our twenties. When we think of friendships,
I'd hope most of us think of these very glorious relationships,
(00:46):
like the reason the world spins the most glorious moments
of laughter and conversation, and like someone who you don't
have to explain yourself to, and like ultimate comfortability. Friendship
is obviously supposed to be kind of a place of
like ease and safety and joy. But sometimes, you know,
(01:11):
let's just say it very simply, it just isn't. Sometimes
a friendship does start to feel more like an obligation
or a drain or a source of anxiety. Unfortunately, for
those who have you know, those of us who have
been in this situation, some friendships can become very toxic
and show patterns of control and disrespect and manipulation that
(01:34):
do a number on us really start to chip away
at our self esteem, and that brings me to the
focus of today's episode. Obviously, we are talking about toxic friendships,
specifically the five types of toxic friendships that you will encounter,
not just in your twenties, but I think in life
in general. I obviously love focusing on like the beauty
(01:55):
of friendship and like how wonderful it is and how
much it brings us. And I'm kind of always a
little bit bummed to talk about the less positive sides
of friendship, but it does need to be acknowledged. We
are so good at talking about red flags and relationships
scigns of toxic or narcissistic partners, but platonic relationships are
(02:17):
just as important and therefore can sometimes be just as
difficult and harmful. And in your twenties, I think this
is even more complicated. Friendship means so much to us
in this decade, but also your life is rapidly changing,
and sometimes our friendships don't match up with what else
is happening in our life. Maybe you've had or you've
(02:39):
found success, and suddenly this relationship has become competitive or
your friends made new friends, and now it's one sided.
Now it's rooted in criticism. Now you're no longer supporting
each other. Here's the truth. Not every friendship is meant
to last forever. Yet we so often hold on because
friendship is wrapped up in these ideas of loyalty and longevity.
(03:01):
And I think at the end of the day, hope
we all have this image. We've all talked to our
friends about being in each other's weddings, knowing each other's children,
being in the nursing home together. And so when that
becomes obvious that that's not going to be the future,
it can feel like a betrayal. But sometimes it is
absolutely necessary and quite frankly worth it to acknowledgement of
(03:24):
friendship is no longer suiting us, or when it has
turned toxic. So today we're going to talk about that,
the five types of toxic friendships that we might encounter,
how to recognize them, how to know when you're in one,
how to navigate getting out of one, especially when you're
in like a broader friendship group, and when it is
(03:45):
absolutely time to walk away, time to say just goodbye,
and how to do that. There's quite a lot. I've
realized there's a lot to talk about, but I am ready.
I hope you are too. Without further ado, let's get
into it. If you think back to being a child,
(04:08):
you know your world was relatively small. Like the people
who mattered to you are, like your family, and like
the neighborhood kids, or like the kids you go to
school with. They weren't really chosen, they're just kind of there.
Same thing in adolescents, maybe they matter a little bit more,
but it's definitely tied up in like school and proximity.
Your twenties are very different. Everything kind of splinters. You
(04:30):
meet so many new people. This is the decade where
you truly choose a lot of those meaningful relationships, and
those choices make a huge difference. You might be living
away from family, living in a new city where you
don't know anyone. You're figuring out who you are, and
your friends become the scaffolding for that new sense of self.
(04:54):
It's why this decade gets called the friendship decade, mainly
mainly by me, but I'm trying to get it to
catch se. You know, you're not tied down by the
same responsibilities that take over later on like marriage, kids,
big career investments, big financial investments, but you also aren't
like the main relationship you have isn't the one you
have with your family anymore. Friends step into this empty
(05:17):
space left by family, and before you know, kids or
a major life partner steps in and they become everything
to us. They become like family. I know that sounds
so cringe, but we know that's the truth. We know
that they are more important in this decade than any other,
and there's good reason for this. A twenty twenty three
study published in Frontiers and Psychology actually demonstrated that adult
(05:42):
friendships are the strongest predictor of life satisfaction for young adults,
even more than career success, finances or romantic status. That's crazy.
It means that you know, the person sitting across from
you at the cafe right now, or the person in
your group chat has more of an influence on your
(06:02):
well being and whether you're going to be happy than
almost anything else right now. A healthy friendship gives us
psychological safety. First of all, it gives us a space
where we can be confused, and we can be messy,
and we can be ambitious, or we can be vulnerable
without fear of being judged, and I think they also
give us a mirror. You know, we really see ourselves
(06:22):
reflected in how our friends respond to us. When a
friend tells us they're proud of you, you know, that
gives you a boost. When they tell you to kind
of pull your head in that humbles you. You see
yourself through them, and friendship, which don't think a lot
of people know, actually regulates us biologically. The neuroscientist Ruth
(06:43):
Feldman has conducted a lot of research in this area,
and her work has shown that close friends that spend
time together their physiological states literally sync up. Their heart
rates align, their bodies release oxytocin in tandem, their brain
activity shows similar patterns. This is a phenomenon called biobehavioral synchrony,
(07:06):
and it explains why being near a trusted friend canon
will significantly lower your stress levels. I have this with
a couple of my friends, but I'm really thinking about
my best friend. I surprised her recently in Tasmania, which
is like this tiny island off of Australia where she lives,
and every time I'm around her, we always talk about
(07:28):
how calm and coregulated we feel like everything just feels
lighter and easier and softer. In other words, you know,
really great friendships don't just make life enjoyable, they actually
make you a more stable version of yourself. So that's
why when a friendship tips into like unhealthy territory, the
(07:49):
damage can feel so destabilizing because in essence, you know,
you're not just losing a relationship, You're losing a coregulator,
you're losing a mirror, You're losing a source of strength.
So with that in mind, let's dive into these five
types of toxic friendships to look out for. Firstly, I
want to just give a brief caveat what do we
mean when we actually say by toxic. I don't think
(08:12):
that toxic describes a person. I'm using it to describe
a relationship. I fully believe this. I don't think that
anyone can be toxic. We all have character traits and
flaws that someone else won't like, but other people won't
have an issue with. There are some people that maybe
are more malicious and manipulative than others. It doesn't mean
(08:34):
that they are inherently a poisonous person. I also believe
people inherently have a capacity to change that's my personal belief.
There are things in my past that I'm not entirely
proud of. There are moments that I have let someone
down and I've done the wrong thing, absolutely, Like I
can remember these times when I didn't think about someone
(08:56):
else's feelings and that really hurt them. But I know
I have grown and I've acknowledged my role and my actions,
and that has really helped me have this new perspective
for friends that have hurt me in the past. It's
not always fair to judge someone based on the last
impression you had of them five years ago, ten years ago.
We change so much in that time, especially if you
(09:18):
were like under the age of thirty when it happened.
I think only true sociopaths can be labeled as toxic,
and even then, some of them are very functional and
they learn empathy, and they are no different to you
and me in terms of how they act in friendships.
So what we are referring to here is toxic dynamics
(09:43):
and the friction that can be created between two people
because of how one person is acting another person is
responding their environment, and how their personalities may be clashing.
So I just want to clear that up at the top.
That being said, let's intro reduce the first type of
toxic friendship. The competitor for this type of friend or friendship.
(10:10):
Everything feels like they're trying to one up you. You
got a new job, Well that doesn't compare at all
to their promotion that they had last month. You just
ran five k, Well they're training for a ten k,
so good luck with that. If you've gone to London,
they went to Paris. Each time you share successes or
(10:31):
something you're proud of, their knee jerk reaction is to
match it, beat it, or downplay it. Even suffering can
become a contest. I don't know if you've experienced this,
but you know what that one friend where if you're stressed,
they're more stressed. If they're hurting worse. If they've been
through a breakup, well you should hear about their breakup
from five years ago. It was awful. This isn't just
(10:54):
annoying over time. It really erodes your ability to share
anything with them because why why would you? Why would
you if they're just going to turn it into a competition.
The root of this is usually social comparison, right, and
it comes from an insecurity in them. They see something
in you that threatens their obviously quite weak sense of self,
(11:14):
and so they have to engage in a very specific
form of social comparison called downward social comparison to make
themselves feel better by making you, positioning you as inferior
to them. But it often means that you start to
censor yourself. And one of the best parts of friendship
is sharing your achievements and also sharing your hard moments.
(11:37):
If you can't do that, what's the point, you know,
what's the point of genuinely never being able to communicate
anything good or bad about your life. So that's number one,
that's the competitor. Secondly, there's the friend who always always
(11:57):
has something to say about what you're doing. This next
type of toxic friend we're gonna call the critic or
the controller. You tell them you're trying a new hobby.
They roll their eyes, They tell you it's you know,
it's actually really bad for the environment, that you won't
stick with it, that that's kind of lame. You're dating
(12:18):
someone new, Well, they pick apart their flaws. They talk
about how terrible they might be for you, how you
could do better at first, maybe you'll laugh, maybe you'll
see them as being protective. Over time, though this like
steady drip of criticism, starts to kind of poison everything else.
(12:40):
This can also sometimes transform into straight up belittlement, whereby
they act as if they always know best. They make
you feel smaller, like your decisions are never gonna be right,
they're never gonna be good enough. And again, what's tricky
is that this is often disguised as care right. They
might phrase it as I just don't want to see
(13:00):
you get hurt, or I'm only telling you this because
I care. But if they actually cared, or they were
mature enough to show they cared properly, it would actually
build you up and give you the confidence to act
in your own way, something like, Hey, I support you
no matter what, but have you considered this? Or you
(13:23):
do what's best for you. You know I'll always be
there if you need me, but have you considered this
other thing? Do you see like the shift in framing here.
They would be delicate about it. They would be gentle.
That is what a friend should do. And sure you
know you actually don't want a friend who is always
going to agree with you or lie to you. I
(13:44):
always say, the best sign of a friendship is someone
who's going to be ruthlessly honest with you when it
is helpful. But if you always disagree with someone in
every single thing, and if it's always like a power struggle,
why are you even friends? Surely there's someone better. In fact,
(14:06):
their constant criticism is often a way to try and
keep you small and control you and to assert dominance,
according to the Gotman Institute. The Gotman Institute is basically
like one of the leading marriage and relationship expert groups
in the world. They say that criticism is one of
their four horsemen of the relationship Apocalypse. It is like
(14:29):
one of the biggest signs of relationship breakdown, according to them,
and it sits alongside contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling, and it's
damaging because of how it breaks down trust in a
relationship and put someone on edge constantly. Criticism is also
a sign that contempt will build on your end, or
(14:49):
defensiveness will occur, and eventually you will get to that
stonewalling stage where you just don't care anymore. If they're
going to give their opinion and you don't want to
listen to it, why listen to anything? They have to say. Okay,
so so far we've had the competitor and we've had
the critic. We are going to take a short break now,
but when we return, let's introduce you to our three
(15:13):
remaining toxic friendships. Stay with us. Okay, so we have
two down, three to go. Are you ready? After the
competitor and the critic, we have the gossip. I know
we've all met one of these people before. The funny
(15:34):
thing about them is that they can actually be really magnetic.
At first, you know, they are often the ones who
always know what's happening. They seem kind of popular because
they know everything in everyone's business. Being close to them
can feel like being on the inside. They're often very charismatic.
But eventually you realize, hey, I don't think they've talked
(15:55):
about themselves once. They only talk about other people, or
they're about other people, or maybe in between all the gossip,
they start asking you really personal, really intrusive questions about
your life. And then you kind of have this realization like, huh,
if they're talking about everyone else like this, they're probably
(16:16):
talking about me too. I don't think that I'm going
to be excluded from this. I'm fairly sure, like I'm
going to be a target that breaks trust, and once
that trust is broken, I think it's nearly impossible to
feel safe about opening up again. Friendship thrives on confidentiality
and on the belief that your vulnerabilities are held close
(16:40):
and careful, so when those get broadcast, any foundation of
intimacy like falls apart. I've also found that with the gossip,
they tend to use others secrets as social currency, like
as a form of money, Like they're a way to
gain power for themselves, And so when you're the kind
(17:00):
of person who they're sacrificing, like, it doesn't feel good
your secrets are being used to bolster their ego. Eventually,
all of that kind of social secret mining, it's gonna
turn on them. It's gonna turn on you. I promise
you that you will realize one day that someone knows
something about you that you did not tell them, who
told them that the gossip. Additionally, I also just think
(17:24):
it gets pretty boring talking about other people all the time,
and it feels kind of nasty. You feel the empathy
and guilt in your body. It's not to say that
none of us, all of us like shouldn't be gossiping.
It's actually a very natural human thing. But afterwards, I
don't know about you, I feel pretty gross about it,
and I always feel the need to be like, oh,
you know, but they're such a good person. But this
(17:47):
so if your friends with someone who's always gossiping and
doesn't seem to have that same reaction, sometimes it could
say something deeper about your values. You kind of end
up thinking, like, how in the world do you have
this stamina for this? What else are they actually even
interested in? What do we even talk about? What's left
in their own life? Nothing? It's not necessarily that your
(18:09):
secrets are being shared. It might just be that this
friendship is kind of boring. This next toxic friendship is
actually pretty hard to spot, and this is the victim
or the manipulator. The victim is always wronged. Their boss
is always unfair to them, their partner is always cruel,
their other friends are neglectful. At first, you might feel
(18:32):
bad for them, of course you would. Of course you
would want to believe them. You know, how awful are
these people treating them? This is so terrible. You want
to show them support. But somewhere along the line you
do begin to notice how your needs never really make
it into the conversation. And another thing you may notice
is that they never seem to take responsibility for their actions.
(18:54):
Of course, there are always going to be times when
someone needs more support than others within a friendship. It
can't always be a fifty to fifty split. But if
nothing ever resolves, even after your advice, your assistance, your comfort,
and it's always a new person for them, well, I
don't know. I just don't believe one person's luck is
(19:16):
ever that bad. What might happen is that when you
finally set a boundary and you say you know, I
can't hang out, I'm super exhausted, or you mentioned that
you feel a little bit unheard or you don't feel great,
they flip the script. They might say something like, well,
I guess I'm a bad friend. I guess I'll just
leave you alone, then leaving you feeling guilty wondering if
(19:38):
you were too harsh, even though all you did was
put a boundary in place. In the most extreme cases,
I do think this sometimes veers into gaslighting. They might
turn the narrative so that you're the one at fault
for their unhappiness. You become the villain they tell all
their other friends about, maybe converging in a sense into
(19:59):
the gossip as well. This constant cycle of trying to
do the right thing, guilt, self doubt, and then exhaustion
is super draining and it can leave you kind of
unsure of where you stand. You don't want to let
them down, but you also want to respect yourself. I
think of all the five toxic friendships, this is the
(20:22):
hardest one to walk away from. Finally, we have the
rarest type of all, and that is the friend who
was just downright meat. They are the combination of competitive controlling,
the gossip, and the victim. Sometimes you might struggle to find,
like literally any redeeming quality about them. Simply put, they
(20:45):
are just not very nice to you. They make you
the punchline of the jokes in the group setting. They
always seem to ruin a perfectly nice time. They are
always hostile. They betray you, they flirt with your partner,
they out a secret about you, They sabotage you. This
person may be a friend, I also think that they
can sometimes be a family member, a sibling, a colleague.
(21:09):
To put it frankly, like you can tell they don't
like you, but for some reason, like they end up
remaining in your life, maybe because you run in the
same circles, maybe because you know your lives are so intertwined.
Maybe they're family. Maybe they are super nice sometimes, but
their hostility is also super obvious. I think all of
(21:30):
these toxic friendships can leave scars. This kind in particular, though,
I think, can cause attachment wounds very similar to that
of a romantic relationship, because it can feel like a
full on affront. Before we talk about the question you're
probably all asking right now, why don't we just walk away,
Let's just quickly talk about how you can spot if
(21:52):
you are in a friendship with with this kind of dynamic.
One of the hardest parts of recognizing a toxic friendship
is that the red flags don't always look obvious. It's
not like someone is being like, wohoo, don't be friends
with me. I'm gonna treat you terribly. And it's not
like when a partner has been awful to you. You know,
(22:14):
if they've cheated or when nasty to you. It's pretty
clear cut, and we talk about it openly. Like I said,
we talk about red flags and relationships all the time,
but with friends it's a lot more subtle. It's the
way you shrink a little when you see them come
in the room. It's the feeling of relief when your
plans get canceled. It's noticing that after hanging out with them,
(22:37):
you feel worse about yourself, not better. So a concept
we might use to refer to this is what we
call emotional residue. Even when the conversation is over, even
when the hangout is done, that negative, sticky residue lingers.
You feel gross, you replay what you said, you question
(22:58):
if you overreacted, you feel really drained, and over time
that residue actually accumulates as well. It's not just emotionally draining.
This actually has a huge impact on how we feel
in our bodies. Studies on social stress show that difficult
relationships elevate cortisol, they impair sleep, they weaken immunity. One
(23:21):
such study, published in twenty twelve by the University of
Utah shows the extent of this impact. So in the study,
this involved one hundred and thirty six adults, and they
looked into their relationships with friends, with family, with acquaintances,
and they measured both the positive and negative feeling associated
with these bonds. The researchers were basically looking into whether
(23:43):
there was any difference in the length of the participants telomeres.
Telomeres are basically the protective caps we have on our chromosomes. Basically,
they protect our DNA from damage. They're like helmets for
our DNA. It's kind of technical, but basically, the shorter
(24:04):
the telomere, the higher the risk of chronic diseases and
a shorter lifespan. And they wanted to see is there
a link between positive and negative relationships and teleomere length.
What they found was that for the participants with a
higher number of relationships that had both really high highs
and really low lows, basically a toxic friendship, the shorter
(24:27):
the length of the telomeres. Let's dive into these findings
a little bit more. They basically suggest that these participants
who had been in turbulent up and down relationships had
a higher risk of chronic conditions and stress reactivity compared
to people who had obviously all great relationships, but interestingly
(24:50):
also people who just had a lot of pretty terrible relationships.
According to the findings of this study, what really meant
added here What really impacted health and teleomere length was
the intensity of the switch up and was the kind
of toxicity meter of these relationships. It was the fact
(25:15):
that there were some good parts and some bad parts,
this emotional push and pull that was dangerous. That means
that even when the friendship isn't necessarily all bad, the
inconsistency itself in those friendships is what can take a toll.
So to contrast that, let's talk about what a good
(25:35):
friendship feels like. And I know this feels kind of silly,
but I actually think this is really really fascinating, and
I've never seen anyone talk about this before. In the nineties,
researchers Meddlesine and Abbot proposed a model of six key
qualities of strong friendships. These included stimulating companionship, so engaging
(25:56):
in enjoyable activities together help prevent giding each other with
support and guidance, intimacy so sharing personal things with each other.
They also included a reliable alliance, so trust, emotional security,
and self validation. Basically, you encourage each other to feel
(26:20):
good about each other and to maintain a positive self image.
That means a good friend celebrates you instead of competing
with you, they encourage you instead of criticizing you. They
listen to you, they spend time with you, they don't
gossip about you. Not only does the research suggest that
those who have more of these good quality, strong friendships
(26:41):
tend to rate their life satisfaction and their well being
more highly, but a follow up study in twenty twenty
two found that having these strong friendships is almost protective
against stress. So that study, it was done in Austria
and it focused on university students during the pandemic, and
(27:03):
it found that when they had good friendships, they actually
suffered less long term. Obviously, like, that's a different time now,
but I still think this plays out on a lot
of other scales. You know, they are what keeps us strong.
And so if you've got someone who secretly wants to
be your worst enemy and secretly, like secretly wants to
(27:26):
see you fail, hmm, it's not they're pretty, it's not
gonna help, Like it's hard to notice them, but their
impact is felt. So if it's so clear that these
toxic relationships harm us, why do we stay? This is complicated.
(27:48):
I've asked myself this question many times. So let's talk
about it after this short break. I've talked about this
on the podcast just a few times throughout the many years.
But when I was a kid, I was pretty badly bullied.
When I was in primary school, I remember once like
(28:09):
this group of friends that I really liked. Every weekend,
I would get my parents to call them on like
the home phone to have like play dates on the weekends,
and they would always be like, oh sorry, Like the
parents would be like, oh sorry, she's busy. Sorry, they're busy.
And then on Monday, I would like find out that
they were all hanging out because they'd tell me. One time,
(28:32):
I remember when I was in high school, I was like,
to my friends, let's do Secret Santa. And they were
all like, that's such a stupid idea. And then on
the last day of school, I was riding my bike
home through the park next to our school and I
saw them. They're all like exchanging gifts, and they like
saw me, and they laughed and they like ducked down.
(28:53):
I stayed friends with those people until I left the state.
Why did I do that? Part of it is history.
If you've been friends for years, you're reliant on them
for at least some sense of who you are, or
just to not feel alone. Cutting ties feels very difficult.
You have woven them into your life, and so to
(29:14):
untangle that can feel impossible and very very scary and
very isolating. The Fear of being left out, the fear
of rocking the boat in the broader group, fear of
not having anyone else like that's a big factor. Social
belonging is a really important human need, and we have
been wired to protect it at all costs. But maybe
the most significant reason we're drawn back into this time
(29:36):
and time again is what that study said earlier. The hope,
the up and down relationships. Toxic friendships are never one
hundred percent bad. There are flashes of joy and kindness
and nostalgia. Every single person has redeeming qualities. Psychologists have
a name for this. It's called intermittent reinforcement. When good
(29:57):
and bad are mixed kind of unpredictably, the bond becomes
even harder to break because you keep chasing the next
good moment and you hope that it will be enough
to outweigh the bad. When you see this play out
in gambling, in addiction, toxic romance relationships, the push the pull,
the cycle of chasing the highs. It's not weakness that
(30:20):
keeps us stuck, but actually a very human desire to
preserve the connection. And this kind of cycle makes it
really hard to walk away because how do you know
when someone's had too many chances? It's a very agonizing question.
The truth is, I'm not going to be able to
give you an answer. There isn't a universal number. Instead,
(30:42):
the better question to ask is what have they already
done with the chances you have given them? Because the
fact that you're considering the question means it's not a
one off event. It's likely become a pattern. So when
you bring up your feelings, do they or do they
dismiss you? Do they take responsibility or do they shift blame?
(31:07):
Do they make changes or do they repeat it again
and again? And if this was a romantic partner, would
you tolerate this pattern? Healthy relationships aren't perfect. They're not
defined by the absence of conflict, but the ability to
repair this conflict. This is known in psychology as rupture
and repair theory. A lot of really long lasting relationships
(31:31):
have really hard moments. The fact that you band together
and fix it and repair it shows love and commitment.
If someone shows willingness to repair after a rupture through apologies,
change behavior, consistency, Yeah, they may deserve another chance. But
if every chance is met with empty apologies, excuses, or
(31:51):
if they just go straight back to what they have
done before, the question may become not how many chances
should I give them? But why am I still offer them?
If you find yourself at this point, it's very difficult.
Friendships aren't built on contracts or ceremonies like marriages or jobs.
They can fade in and out, and they can evolve silently,
(32:14):
and that can make knowing when to walk away very confusing.
So I'm gonna outline some steps that you can take
to address a toxic friendship, starting with this first one.
If you feel physically and emotionally safe, clarity is always
the first step. It's very easy to fantasize about just disappearing,
(32:35):
but sometimes what feels like toxicity can actually stem just
from a lack of awareness. They just don't know how
you're feeling, and trust me, ghosting isn't a good solution.
I've done that to a friend I really didn't think
I could repair things with for a lot of reasons,
and despite that, I really regret it. I regret it
actually a lot. At the time, it felt right, but
(32:56):
I wish that we'd had a chance to maybe just
maybe been able to hash things out. Of course, when
we approach someone with accusations like you're always so negative
or you're such a bad friend, they're gonna get defensive,
they're gonna turn it back on you. But when we
frame our concerns around our own feelings, we leave the
door open for again repair. That might sound like, you know,
(33:20):
when you cancel last minute, I feel unimportant. I know
you don't mean it that way, but this makes me
feel like I don't matter. The focus is on the
impact it had on you, not their character, and this
shifts the conversation from blame to possibility. Sometimes people just
don't realize how their behavior lands. They just don't know.
(33:43):
They're used to interacting with people in a different way,
and in those cases, like a simple conversation can actually
change the entire dynamic. Let me tell you this, When
you are overwhelmed, angry, frustrated, lashing out is the easiest
thing you can do, but oh my gosh, in the
long term, a lot better to handle things maturely. And
(34:04):
I'm telling you, like when you get to a moment
where you realize, hey, like I handled this so much
better than I would have before, Like I'm so proud
of talking with them about this. You feel great about yourself,
Like you kind of even want to talk to them
about it and be like, hey, we handle that so well,
Like look at us growing as people. It's a good moment.
(34:25):
Really start there. I employ you to start at that
point of clarity. If the behavior doesn't change, that's when
boundaries come in. Here's something worth emphasizing. Boundaries are not
meant to be punishments. They are actually instructions for how
you want to be treated. There is a famous quote
that I love that says boundaries are the distance at
(34:47):
which I can love you and still love myself simultaneously.
I think that's profound. They're not wars to like shut
people out. They're actually guidelines that allow you to stay
connected if the other person is willing to respect them.
A boundary is I can't keep talking to you if
you make me feel judged afterwards, or when you make
(35:07):
those jokes in front of other people, I need to
step back. The boundaries need to be specific. There needs
to be cause and effect. You did this, I'm responding
this way. They cannot be like vague demands to like,
you know, try harder with me or be nicer. They
need to be specific. I need you to make plans
with me. I need you to honor out commitments. I
(35:28):
need you to speak positively about me around other people.
If the person in question then decides to disregard these boundaries,
it is really important to act. It's the hardest part.
And it doesn't mean like a dramatic ultimatum or a fight.
It can simply mean reducing how much time you spend together,
or choosing not to share vulnerable information, or letting the
(35:52):
friendship kind of just move to the background a little bit.
A boundary is a contract. If you say a boundary
is a non negotiable, but then allowed it to be
crossed without consequences, you know, it doesn't really work. It
just kind of becomes like a suggestion. So you need
to be ready to teach people sometimes how to treat you,
(36:12):
which everyone knew. But again, sometimes people just are used
to different things. They have a different way of seeing things,
they have a different culture, they have a different personality.
So make sure that you have a clear boundary that
may actually help them treat you better. I would also
advise that you lean on other friends for their perspective,
specifically ones that you trust. We've talked about how friends
(36:36):
can be mirrors to ourselves. Toxic friends can warp that mirror,
make it feel like we're being unreasonable or selfish. Talking
it through with supportive people gives you that reality check.
It allows you to practice possible responses in advance as well.
Toxic dynamics often come with gaslighting or deflection, so rehearsing
(36:57):
how your stay calm can really help. For example, if
you know they're gonna say like you're overreacting, practice saying
to a friend, I hear you, but this is still
important to me, And I think maybe most importantly denote
give yourself permission to step away if you don't want
to be there anymore. Friendships a valuable, not all of
(37:20):
them are worth preparing. Sometimes the healthiest thing is simply
just to let nature take its course, just let the
person fade out. That might not always be possible. Something
I always get asked is like, I have this terrible
person that I'm friends with, but we are in a
(37:44):
friendship group. We have all these friends all these connections,
It's gonna get messy. What do I do? I think
in those moments, the goal shifts from ending the friendship
to managing the dynamic. I'm gonna be honest, it's gonna
be awkward. It's gonna be a little bit uncomfortable at times,
(38:06):
purely because the dynamic has changed. But I promise you
you can handle discomfort. It's okay. But it is really
important to avoid trying to recruit the whole group and
ask them to take sides. This is like a very
natural instinct. Do not force people to see your perspective.
They will naturally form their own opinions. Your job isn't
(38:29):
to convince them. Don't avoid the situation either. Avoidance can
often isolate you more than the toxic person ever did,
and it can be part of their toolkit. Instead going
with a game plan, you will stay polite, You will
keep things neutral. You will focus your energy on the
(38:50):
friends who support you, because if they are still good friends,
they can actually be friends with two people at once.
I know this is really hard sometimes because you're like,
how do you not see what they've done to me
and how awful they were to me? Just trust me,
they're gonna figure it out. They will figure it out.
I one of my best friends had this falling out
(39:14):
with a mutual friend of ours, and I stayed friends
with this other person for a little while because it
was kind of uncomfortable for me to walk away. It
wasn't my fight. Oh, she didn't say anything. She was
great to me about it. She was like, you stay
friends with them. And I figured out exactly after a
while what had caused their friendship breakup. You know, soon enough,
(39:34):
it always happens. This is is advice I gave to
my friend, like literally the other day, who was dealing
with like a big group dynamic where one person obviously
doesn't like her but hasn't said anything Directly. Approach those
interactions like nothing is wrong. If they haven't confronted you,
even though you know they're talking about it behind your back,
(39:56):
it's still none of your business. I need you to
use every fiber in your body to be kind, to
be normal to you. There is no problem. If they
want to bring a problem to you, great, but that's
their business. You are showing the group, you're showing yourself
that you are bigger than the drama. That is the
(40:17):
most powerful way that you can manage the situation. Now,
let's talk about the friendship breakup. I feel like we've
kind of been snaking our way to this moment where
the explosion happens. We know that friendship breakups do not
get the same attention as romantic breakups, and yet we
know they can be just as hard. It's important that
(40:40):
you allow yourself to be sad about this. You were
allowed to grieve this person and what the future you
really thought you had with them. It's so romantic, because
friendship is romantic at times, you do imagine a future,
but I think it's really refreshing just to see what
space that opens up for you. Toxic friendships take up
(41:02):
a lot of energy, They take up a lot of
time and space in our mind. So when they fade,
that space is suddenly yours again. Use it. Text that
old friend that you've lost touch with, Join a book club,
join a running group, do a trivia night, do a
pottery class, dive back into your hobbies and the things
(41:26):
that make you feel like you again. Honestly, it's like
a breakup. After a breakup, you've got to kind of
curate your social life all over again, and that means
you get to choose what feels good, what energizes you,
what you want more of. Losing a friendship knocks your
confidence so hard. It's so conflicting you know what's for
the best. You feel like a bad person implicitly, sometimes
(41:51):
you have regrets, So just investing all of that energy
back into yourself can really help. It's also so empowering
to celebrate the upgrade. And I don't want to come
across as cold or dismissive or insensitive, but they're kind
of losing the better person here. They're losing you. You know,
(42:12):
they're losing the person that gave them a bunch of chances,
that talked them through their behavior, that celebrated them, that
loved them. For whatever reason, the friendship didn't work out.
You guys didn't gel, So that doesn't mean that you
didn't try your hardest and that you're not still at catch.
(42:32):
You're not losing in this situation. You cannot be friends
with every single person you've ever met for the rest
of your life. That is actually again. It's again when
you realize that someone can't keep up with your emotional bandwidth,
can't keep up with you, doesn't care about either way
(42:52):
you care about them as someone who had so many
experiences when they were a teenager and when they were younger,
when they were in university where they would try very
very hard. I would always try so hard to be
the friend that everyone wanted to be friends with, and
I would put so much into my friendships, and I
would love them so much and do the exciting things
(43:12):
with their birthdays and shout dinners and you know, be
at their runs and celebrate them. Some people just don't
appreciate that. And the thing is is that I waited
a long time, and now I have the people that do,
so I can tell you that they're out there. I
was talking to like a family member of mine who's
(43:34):
ait a lot younger than me, who's like going through
a really hard time at school, and I just was like,
I totally get where you're coming from. I spent like
the first two decades of my life without any real friends,
with like one real friend, and then suddenly, like I
entered my mid twenties and everyone came out of the woodwork.
(43:59):
Everyone was I suddenly just met these amazing people. And
the same way I didn't settle in a romantic relationship,
I didn't settle when it came to my friendships either.
And now I just feel like I have been rewarded
for my suffering and for my times when I didn't
get what I wanted in terms of friendship. And I
(44:21):
truly believe that that happens for people, and that holding
out for good friends is just again like holding out
for good relationships. So I'm wishing you the best of luck.
I hope this episode has brought you some clarity when
it comes to these relationships. I hope it has given
(44:42):
you a sense that stepping away it's not necessarily a
bad thing, is not and does not make you a
bad person, and that yeah, those people exist and they suck,
and it's okay to like not want to be friends
with them anymore. So I hope this episode helped. I
hope you learned something from it. I want to thank
(45:04):
out wonderful, wonderful researcher Libby Colbert for her contributions to
this episode. If you have made it this far, I
want you to leave a little comment down below showing
some love for a non toxic friend in your life.
Let's show people that they still exist. I want to
shout out my friend erin Aarin is like the other
(45:27):
member of this podcast. I feel like if you've been
around for a while, you will have heard her name
quite a few times. She's been on the podcast, like twice.
I had such a great weekend with aerin last weekend
when I went and surprised her, So I just want
to give a shout out to her. You know, we
didn't become friends till I was like twenty two, and
I've never felt so much love from another person who
(45:49):
I was not like, either a family member of or dating.
So those friends do exist, and I want to give
her a shout out, and hopefully you can give a
shout out to someone like that in the comments blow
feel coold to do so, make sure that you are
following along or subscribed wherever you are listening, whether that
is on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, the iHeartRadio app. Make sure
(46:10):
to leave a five star review if you feel cold
to do so, and follow us on Instagram. At that
Psychology Podcast, someone was asking me the other day why
it's not the Psychology of your Twenties. I'm feeling sure
either that name was taken or it was just too long.
So there you go, there's your answer. That Psychology Podcast
it is that until next time, stay safe, be kind,
(46:32):
be gentle to yourself in the face of maybe a
toxic friendship. I believe in you, and we will talk
very very soon.
Host
Jemma Sbeghen
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