Is it time to break up with your toxic friend?

Toxic friends. I'm pretty sure just about everyone has had one. If you haven't then consider yourself so, soooo lucky or just THAT confident that you wouldn't put up with it (in which case, can I have a piece of that?).

It's so common that Hollywood even coined a term for it:

FRENEMY.

So what's a toxic friend?

Well she is that self-absorbed, disrespectful, selfish, manipulative little soul sucking biatch, the one who is overly demanding, speaks to you in a way that you wouldn't even tolerate from your partner (or especially your partner!) and generally makes you feel guilty, undermined, taken advantage of or just simply drained. Everything comes with strings. Every 'innocent' comment designed to hit you where it hurts.

Meanwhile, while they're putting you down, they're expecting you to pick them up.

And yet you put up with it.

Note this isn't exclusively a women only problem, but generally men won't put up with that crap so its inevitable that it happens more often with women. For the purposes of this article Miss Toxic Biatchness will be referred to as a 'she'.

Friends should make you feel good. They should prop you up when you're down, celebrate with you when you're up. Much like a relationship, they should bring out the best in you (and vice versa, otherwise you might become Miss Toxic Biatchness herself, which is kinda not the point here).

Healthy friendships are crazy important for your emotional wellbeing so it's fair to say that an UNhealthy friendship with Miss Toxic Biatchness that is all take and no give, is really detrimental to your mental health.

So why do we put up with her? Let's face it, if you just met Miss Toxic Biatchness, you'd want to slap her silly so why invite her into your front door and give her a key?

So recently it dawned on a friend of mine that someone in her inner circle for many, many years was...well...a disrespectful biatch (aka Miss Toxic Biatchness). Kicking her to the kerb has been a hard journey for my mate and she's still going through the grieving process (yes losing a friend can be as hard as a relationship breaking up). She's still not there but I know she will be because now she's really reviewing the last x amount of years of friendship and realising all the things that she's made excuses for, all the behaviours she's ignored or let go in the name of being a good friend. She's pretty horrified with herself that she let all this happen without even really noticing it.

And God knows I've been through this once or six times myself. So I get that it's not that easy to just 'kick em to the kerb' as is so helpfully suggested by many.

Firstly it can be really hard to recognise that a friend truly is toxic or even if you know it, you feel obligated to 'fix them' or make excuses. Have you ever said 'oh that's just their way' or 'they're just shy' or something else equally inane?

Sadly I have.

Or they don't have anyone else so you feel like you can't abandon them. Or you can't help but remember something wonderful they did for you in the past (which is likely the ONLY wonderful thing, but you've been clinging to it for 20 years) which you then use to excuse their behaviour before and since.

Reminds of a saying that my stepmother used to hang in her kitchen:

If momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

The fact is, it isn't your job to fix your so-called friend. And a one-sided friendship sucks. Your soul. Literally.

If talking it out doesn't change things, then you really are doing the only healthy thing for yourself, and that's to walk away. Yes it's hard, and it leaves a hole that you think may never be filled.

But it will. It does, and one day you'll wake up happier and freer and so much more confident that you don't have that toxic, niggling presence of Miss Toxic Biatchness making you feel just a touch worse about yourself day after day. And you'll wonder why you ever put up with such a one-sided friendship that made you feel crap about yourself.

And then you have MORE time for the fulfilling, uplifting friendships that really matter.

It's a mental health service really.

Say it with me people...sayonara Miss Toxic Biatchness.

xx