Toxic Friends and How to Spot One

A Toxic Friend is like a virus that can destroy you from the inside out. Sometimes we don’t realize that a friend is toxic until they have caused us to create damage to ourselves and the people we love. These are the type of people who can drag you down and prevent you from moving forward and being happy.

Here are several types of toxic friends, and their symptoms.

THE NARCISSIST

This type of friend usually believes he/she is on top of the world and the best at everything, often creates a cloud of fake confidence to hide underlying personal issues and conflicts.

1. They are very arrogant and have a bloated ego.
2. Their confidence is always based on something — like awards or what people say about them.
3. Learning a new skill or beating you at a certain something can easily make their day.
4. They talk about themselves, as well as their grand plans most of the time. They usually don’t listen to you when you talk about your dreams.
5. In Highschool, they always wanted to jive with the most popular kids.
6. They can make you feel insecure and bad about yourself. They constantly bombard you with destructive criticisms.
7. You usually try to rub their criticisms off as jokes, even though you know they aren’t.
8. Whenever you are with them, you feel bad about yourself.
9. They influence you to be extremely self-conscious.
10. They think their hobbies, interests, and tastes are superior to yours. They criticize your humanity for not liking what they like.
11. They have no evidence to support their superiority in any way.
12. They are bad at dealing with emotions. They often try to avoid talking about personal topics.
13. They don’t support your dreams and aspirations.
14. If you win a competition or something good happens to you, they never share in your joy.
15. They care too much about their social media presence and usually put their best foot forward.
16. You rarely or never have received a sincere compliment from them.
17. They never apologize for what they do, instead, they play the victim and leave you frustrated.
18. They vandalize your personal belongings for fun.
19. They tend to deflect the conversation to themselves.
20. They are hypocrites but feel like they know it all.

THE DOWNDRAFT

This type of friend usually brings nothing positive to the table and instead leaves everyone feeling bumbed out. A series of underlying personal issues that they are too lazy to do something about is usually the core reason behind it.

1. They constantly judge you, your personality, and the friends you choose to hang out with.
2. They are clingy and will usually not give you a lot of personal space.
3. They are incredibly good at talking about their emotions — but only the negative ones.
4. A conversation with them leaves you in a bad mood.
5. They encourage you to hate other people.
6. They encourage you to be stubborn and lazy.
7. All they talk about is bad news, and how much they hate the situation of their lives and other people’s lives.
8. They are there for you during the fun times, but not when you really need them.
9. “Hate” is their favorite word.
10. You really can’t see anything positive in the world when you are with them.

THE FRENEMY — MANIUPLATOR

Sometimes the line between a friend and a literal life cancer can get blurred, but here are certain things to look for when you suspect your friend is actually an enemy.

1. They get you into trouble. You usually clean up after them.
2. They take your close friends away from you.
3. They don’t support your dreams and aspirations.
4. They can physically hurt you, as well as your belongings for fun.
5. They feel threatened if you are beating them at the things they are good at.
6. They secretly want you to stay at the “bottom of the food supply”.
7. You are afraid of leaving them because you think you have nowhere else to go. Probably because they have led you to feel distant from your other friends.
8. They treat people like instruments.
9. They make fun of you in front of other people.
10. You always feel bad about yourself when you are with them.
11. You still like this person, even though deep down inside you want to kill them so bad.
12. You feel like a literal “sidekick”.
13. They rarely ask permission when it comes to sensitive things about you.
14. They treat you like a project and keep mentioning how you can improve yourself based on their terms.
15. They don’t care if you cut them off.
16. They often care more about newly met people than you, their long time “friend”.
17. They have never demonstrated any of these values in any way whatsoever: Compassion, Support, Generosity, Gratitude.

Bonus: If this person is who you consider being your best friend, you usually believe it's “you and me against the world” even though you deeply know that you are hurt inside.

Recovering from Toxic Shit

If you’ve recently ended a toxic relationship with someone with narcissistic traits, like a friend or partner, you’re likely dealing with plenty of hurt and confusion.

Even when you know, deep down, that you weren’t to blame for the pain you received, believing this is often very confusing, and you often ruminate what you could have done differently. Toxic relationships with toxic people can sometimes share the same characteristics as addiction: it has reinforcement, it builds a habit, and there is a sense of (sick) reward

You know the relationship wasn’t healthy. You’re aware they mistreated you. But you still can’t shake your memories of how you felt in the beginning and the good times you had. These memories might lead you to crave their company and feel like you’d do anything to earn their love and approval again.

Abuse is often deeply traumatizing, and the healing process can take some time.

If you’re feeling lost, the tips below can help you take your first steps on the path to recovery.

Acknowledge and accept your hurts

Recognizing that you did experience abuse, whether from a romantic partner, family member or friend, is an important first step toward recovery.

At the beginning of the healing process, you might have a hard time setting aside rationalizations and potential excuses for the other person’s behavior.

In fact, you may feel perfectly willing to take the blame on yourself, as long as it means you don’t have to admit someone you love intentionally hurt you.

This is normal and completely understandable.

Denial can protect you, in a way. Love for a friend, partner, or family member overshadows reality for many people.

It’s also tough to accept that some people just don’t seem to care when they hurt others.

But denying what happened prevents you from addressing it and healing from it. It can also set you up to experience more pain in the future.

Compassion is never wrong, but mental health issues don’t excuse abuse. You can always encourage them to reach out for support — while creating enough space to keep yourself safe.

As a rule of thumb, you must arm yourself with education about narcissistic behaviors, and the reasons behind them. Learning to identify tactics often used by people with narcissism can make it easier to come to terms with your experience.

Prepare for complicated emotions

Most breakups involve painful feelings, including:

• grief and loss
• shock
• anger
• sadness or feelings of depression

After ending a relationship characterized by narcissistic abuse, you might experience these along with other types of emotional distress, Biros explains.

This includes:

• frustration
• rage
• anxiety
• stress
• extreme confusion
• constant rumination of the past

The trauma of a toxic relationship can also leave you with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Toxic people can cause a lot of pain. But they also have a knack for getting you to believe in their reality. So while you may have sustained some deep emotional wounds, you might still question your own actions.

Your concern for them can, for example, convince you it was your fault they manipulated you and mistreated you.

Breaking off a toxic family or friend relationship in your circles can also trigger feelings of guilt or disloyalty.

These are normal emotional experiences. Working through them alone isn’t always easy, though, especially when you feel confused by manipulation tactics.

Reclaim your identity

People with narcissistic traits often expect others to behave in certain ways. They harshly belittle or criticize people for failing to meet these standards. Here’s what it can look like:

• Your friend said you were terrible at singing, so you developed a fear of music production.
• Your parent regularly told you how “foolish” you were for “wasting time” on music, so you gave up playing the piano.
• They might try to control your time and keep you from seeing friends or participating in activities by yourself.
• Your ex may have told you how your fashion sense was terrible, so you changed it (not to your liking).

If you’ve changed your looks and style or lost things you used to value as a result of this manipulation, you might feel as if you no longer know yourself very well.

Part of recovery involves getting reacquainted with yourself, or figuring out what you enjoy, how you want to spend your time, and who you want to spend it with.

The best thing to do while you go down the path of recovery is to try and reconnect with your soul. Try and go back to doing the things you love.

Practice self-compassion

Once you acknowledge that your relationship was, in fact, abusive, you might have a lot of criticism for yourself.

But remember, no one deserves abuse, and their behavior is not your fault.

Instead of blaming yourself for falling for their manipulation or judging yourself letting them mistreat you for so long, offer yourself forgiveness instead.

Give yourself a pat on the back, and offer YOURSELF forgiveness and care.

You can’t change the past, and you can’t change their behavior or actions. You only have power over yourself, thus giving you control of your future…

Experiences like these are normal and necessary for you to fully recognize that you deserve respect, happiness, and healthy love.

Praise yourself for the choice to end the relationship, and encourage yourself to stick to that decision.

Understand that your feelings may linger

Love can be difficult, in part because you can’t really control it. You can’t always stop loving someone, even someone who hurts you. After ending the relationship, you might still hold on to positive memories and wish you could somehow experience those days again. But it’s important to recognize you don’t need to stop loving someone to start healing. Waiting for that to happen can stall the recovery process. You can continue loving someone while recognizing their behavior makes it impossible for you to safely maintain a relationship with them. Sometimes, accepting this knowledge can jumpstart an emotional disconnect that helps you feel more able to detach from the relationship.

Take care of yourself

Good self-care practices can make a big difference in your recovery. Self-care involves meeting your emotional and physical needs.

That might include things like:

• getting enough restful sleep
• relaxing when overwhelmed or stressed
• making time for hobbies and things you enjoy doing
• connecting with loved ones and going out with friends
• meeting new people on a consistent basis
• using coping skills to manage distressing thoughts such as journaling or meditation
• eating balanced meals
• staying physically active

Your mind and body help support each other, so taking care of physical needs can help you feel stronger and more equipped to work through emotional distress.

Talk to others

Opening up to supportive friends and family members can help you feel less alone as you heal. It is often best to open up to the people who you know have gone through the same type of turmoil as you have.

End Notes

If pain is real, so is happiness

If grief is true, so is satisfaction

If frustration exists, so does fulfillment

Toxic people are a part of human life, and dealing with them is a challenge everyone will face at one point in time. It’s part of being alive.