Toxic friendships can significantly impact your mental health, often in subtle yet profound ways. Here’s a detailed look at how these unsupportive relationships can affect you.
Friendships during youth play a vital role in personal growth and emotional health. However, not all friendships are positive or supportive. Toxic friendships can profoundly affect a young person’s mental well-being, impacting their self-esteem, stress levels, and overall emotional stability. Understanding the signs of toxic friendships and their potential effects is essential for both young individuals and their caregivers.
Signs of a Toxic Friend
- Constant criticism: Toxic friends frequently criticise you, often under the guise of ‘honest feedback’ or ‘just kidding.’
- Lack of Support: In a healthy friendship, support should be mutual. If your friend is consistently unsupportive of your needs and achievements, it’s a red flag.
- Jealousy and Competitiveness: A toxic friend may show jealousy or competitiveness towards you, undermining your successes. This kind of attitude can create a sense of rivalry rather than support.
- One-Side effort: If you find yourself always reaching out, making plans, or supporting your friend while they rarely reciprocate, the relationship may be imbalanced and toxic.
- Isolation From Others: Toxic friends may try to isolate you from other supportive relationships or create conflicts with those around you.
How Toxic Friendship Affect Your Mental Wellbeing?
Dr Trideep Choudhury, Associate Consultant Psychiatrist, Department of Mental Health and Behavioral Sciences, Fortis Faridabad spoke to India.com and shared, “Healthy friendships mirror our true selves and guide us on the right path, promoting personal growth. In contrast, toxic friendships erode self-esteem, hinder personal development, and can lead to negative behaviors and isolation from support systems, making it difficult to seek help and maintain well-being.”
- Low Self-Esteem: Toxic Friendships often involve manipulation, criticism and undermining behaviour. This can affect your self-esteem as you may start doubting your worth, abilites and self-worth. Constant negative feedback or comparison with others can lead you to feel inadequate and unworthy.
- Anxiety And Depression: Being around those friends who are negative or critical can increase feelings of anxiety and depression. The constant fear of judgement or conflict can make it difficult to relax or feel safe, impacting your mental health.
- Isolation: Toxic friends might isolate you from other supportive relationships, either intentionally or unintentionally. This isolation can deepen feelings of loneliness and exacerbate mental health struggles
- Emotional Damage: Toxic relationships can be emotional exhausting. If you’re constantly dealing with drama, manipulation, or one-sided support, you may feel drained and overwhelmed, which can lead to increased stress and anxiety.
- Negative Attitude: Constant exposure to a friend’s negative attitudes and behaviours can cause you to adopt similar thought patterns. You may start to see yourself in a more negative light, mirroring their critical views.
Recognising the patterns and knowing the effects of toxic relationships is key to start the healing process and build more supportive relationships. By dealing with the problems caused by toxic friendships, you can work on rebuilding your self-esteem, easing emotional pain, and improving your mental health.