(incoming long post, I’m sorry!)
Hey anon, I’m sorry you’re going through this. Toxic friendships can be so draining, and in my experience sometimes you don’t even realize you’re in one until everything snaps, so it’s good that you’re able to realize that you need to make a change because that can be a hard thing to do, even though of course, this is a crappy situation.
Also I’m sorry this took me a while to answer, I needed a bit of time to reflect and gather my thoughts because this rang a bit close to some recent experiences of mine. I also had @sssoto help me with this answer, because I just wanted a second opinion on something like this.
First: do not get upset with yourself for not noticing red flags. If there is someone toxic in your life, that is not your fault. It’s easy to look back once you’ve noticed and go ‘wow, how didn’t I see?’ but it can be hard to see in the midst, like a plot twist at the end of a book. It seems like it’s always easier for other people to see. You spot toxic people in your friend’s lives way better than you can in your own, in my experience, and vice versa. You’re noticing now, and what’s important is taking care of yourself now, instead of getting mad for what you didn’t see earlier.
For the most part, I’m happy to say I’ve had mostly very healthy relationships throughout my life and that the toxic people I’ve known are all gone from my life now, and there have been few. Many toxic relationships go both ways, however this is a list of traits I’ve noticed in toxic people I’ve known. I’ve not always been a perfect friend or perfect person because no one has been, but I don’t think I’ve ever had a relationship that was mutually toxic in that we were both very bad for each other, though I do think being around some toxic people brought out behaviour in me that I’m not proud of.
Anyways, this definitely isn’t a comprehensive list, and if someone does one of these things or does one of these things one time, I’m not trying to say that makes them a toxic person automatically. These are just things that I’ve found toxic people have tendencies to do, and tend to do over and over as a pattern. I know there are a lot of resources online about toxic behaviour, this is just from my experience.
Your feelings don’t matter, and theirs matter a lot. This was the thing that made the worst friendship I’ve ever had so draining and unhealthy. I’ve noticed it in multiple toxic people I’ve known. To this person, their feelings deserve endless attention, and their feelings are easily hurt over tiny things or misunderstandings. On the other hand, your feelings have little importance to them. What matters to them is only how they feel, not how you feel, or the reality of facts, and they’ll have outbursts or hold grudges towards you because you hurt them even for something small or evidently barely your fault. You might find yourself acting in ways you wouldn’t normally or suppressing your own desires and well being just to appease to this person’s fragile feelings, especially if it’s because the choice is become a doormat, or the worse alternative of some big conflict, it can become habit to just become the doormat.
They treat you like a therapist. This goes off the last point. They need constant reassurance and emotional care from you, but when you have a problem they give you little attention. It’s emotionally draining, and even though being there emotionally for your friends is great, the difference is when it only goes one way and it’s the reason that person is friends with you, just so you can be their therapist.
Simultaneous superiority and inferiority complexes. This is kind of specific, but I have seen it a lot in toxic people. I’ve noticed toxic people are often very insecure, and as a result can grow very emotionally needy and require a lot of positive reinforcement, and as well are very easily hurt. But at the same time, they often have a simultaneous superiority complex and view themselves as in some way smarter/more talented/wiser/more mature than other people. They can’t take criticism as a result, or see the fault in their actions.
It is never their fault. Nothing is ever their fault. It’s yours, it’s someone else’s, it’s everyone else’s–but it’s never theirs. Toxic people do not grow, they don’t accept their mistakes. To protect themselves and their fragile self-image, they throw other people under the bus so they don’t have to take responsibility for their actions. You might not notice this at first because the person just frames every past experience they tell you about as a bad one that wasn’t their fault, and makes themselves seem like the victim or the better person, but when you start witnessing these experiences play out in the present, you can see how the person twists situations so they’re never at fault. Basically, they have pretty strong victim complexes.
They think everyone is out to get them and have a negative view of people in general. This is similar to the last one. I find toxic people tend to have overall pessimistic views towards people. They think people are trying to take advantage of them, or are generally cruel, or whatever else. To them, you are an exception and one of the rare good ones.
They have a long history of bad relationships, framed as ‘people who hurt them’. Okay, I’m not saying if someone has a few bad relationships or friendships this makes them a toxic person or it’s their fault. I’ve just noticed that toxic people tend to come with a long history of exes or ex-best friends they claim somehow screwed them over or were awful in some way–not because they really were, but because this is how the toxic person frames it now. Sometimes, you have to ask if this person has had so many failed friendships because they’ve had awful luck, or because they’re toxic and have ruined their friendships and now blame the other person.
They have a hierarchy. This person doesn’t treat all their friends equally. They have a clear hierarchy of favouritism, and they make it known to you that you aren’t the best.
They gaslight you/others. I was *shook* when I first learned what gaslighting was. I don’t think I’ve ever been gaslighted by someone (I’ve seen some of the tactics used on me, but not for long enough for it to work), but I know people who have been. I think it’s more common than we think because it might seem extreme, but I think it’s good to know the signs. If you’ve never heard of gas lighting, it’s a form of emotional abuse and manipulation, where the abuser makes the person question their own judgement, sanity, or memory, therefore making them dependent on the abuser, vulnerable to manipulation, and completely discredited in any disputes.
They’re jealous, controlling, or possessive. This is classic unhealthy behaviour. I’ve always known this was a red flag in romantic relationships, and yet I recognized it in a friendship and brushed it off because the person wasn’t actually controlling me, I just noticed they got jealous when I mentioned or spent time with other friends, like they didn’t want me to have any friends except them. Even though their behaviour wasn’t controlling, jealousy like this is unhealthy and a red flag. However, it might even go further, they might actively try to control who you associate with or something similar.
They pressure you. Whether it’s just into agreeing with them or doing something you otherwise wouldn’t or don’t want to.
So with that, here are a few things I’ve noticed I tend to do in a toxic relationship, signs you might recognize in yourself. I’m sure not everyone reacts the same way, but this is how I feel I tend to act in situations like this.
You don’t voice concerns you have because you’re scared of how they’ll react. I know opening up about issues in a relationship can be hard even though communication is very important, but it can be especially difficult if the thought of doing so isn’t scary because it means being vulnerable or something like that, but because you’re legitimately scared of the person’s reaction and what they might do.
You don’t voice your opinion, you just agree with them on everything. For a similar reason as the above. You know the person doesn’t really respect your opinions or views, so you just don’t share them and agree with them even if in actuality you disagree, because they don’t take disagreement well. I fell into this one hard, guys. I know it’s a bad habit I personally have in general because I’m very conflicted averse, but it got especially bad in one friendship and it’s not very good self respect, it can leave you feeling pretty lousy to just suppress your own thoughts and views.
You don’t talk about your problems, you just listen to theirs. You might feel like your emotions or problems just get brushed off when you mention them, so you stop bringing them up, whereas the other person requires a lot of attention to their emotions, so your entire friendship just revolves around them.
You prioritize their feelings over yours. I’m a major pushover and it’s a big problem for me even in some perfectly healthy relationships, but it gets exacerbated around unhealthy people because as I mentioned, they tend to view their own feelings as much more important than other people’s, so at least for me, I turn into a total doormat.
The relationship feels precarious. You’re worried about your relationship because it seems like it wouldn’t take much for the person to get really mad at you, or even end the relationship themselves. Listen guys, I held on to some big issues I had with a friend because I was worried if I shared them the person would react so strongly our friendship would end (isn’t that ironic, how talking about the things ruining our friendship might ruin the friendship), and when I finally voiced one of them the person cut me out immediately without explanation, that’s how precarious the friendship was. If a relationship is that precarious, it’s probably not healthy or worth your emotional energy.
Spending time with them makes you feel tired or bad about yourself. I know for introverts socializing can make us tired, but tired in a different way, a negative way. Or, spending time with them makes you feel bad about yourself, maybe because they’re overly critical or judgemental.
Spending time with them makes you a more negative person. Similarly, you might find that talking to this person brings out the worst in you. You feel like you become a more negative or judgemental person when or after speaking to them.
They don’t respect your autonomy. They don’t respect your individual choices or opinions, even if these things have no effect on them whatsoever. This was actually one of the biggest signs to me that one of my friendships was really toxic. I realized near the end that this person was extremely critical of aspects of my lifestyle that had literally no effect on them whatsoever, but criticizing my choices and interests was a way for them to alleviate their own insecurity.
Now, as for how to distance yourself.
This is honestly really hard, I’m not good at it myself. This is where my personal advice runs a bit thin, because I’m more observant than I am good at actually making changes in my life.
One way is if you can block the person on social media and just leave, it leaves you with the most closure in my experience because there are no loose ends or awkward conversations afterwards. Personally, I wouldn’t cut someone out like that without giving them an explanation first, because I think that’s cruel, but the ‘drop and block’ as I call it, in which you drop a truth, then block the person, is often very effective. I actually did that recently to a guy at my school who was sending me increasingly aggressive messages, and it worked well. He never contacted me again because he couldn’t, I had the closure and satisfaction of knowing I’d called him out on his aggressive behaviour and misogyny, and my friends all know that if we see him on campus to just leave as quickly as possible. I didn’t have much of a pre-existing relationship with this person though, so it wasn’t a hard thing to do, although I really think it is the cleanest way that gives you easiest time moving on, even if it’s hard in itself. It can also be hard if you’re going to be running into this person a lot, and it can anger the person a lot so if they’re aggressive or vengeful it could caused them to lash out.
From another personal experience, sometimes you can just drift away from someone. I had a friendship of many years where it got kind of unfortunate near the end and it was clear this person didn’t really have much interest in being my friend anymore, so we just slowly drifted apart. We still see each other sometimes because we have mutual friends, but I stopped initiating conversations with her and so our friendship is basically over and it happened in a very slow way. We grew apart, but I accepted that and stopped trying to find ways to nurture a friendship that was pretty much dead. I wouldn’t call this a situation of a toxic relationship though, so I didn’t feel like I had to distance myself from this person for my own well being.
Leaving the relationship in whichever way causes the least of a scene is probably easiest, which is why phasing it out can be the best. It’ll probably cause the least animosity, but it can leave the relationship lingering in your life a bit more. However, I have witnessed people taking action against friends who tried to distance themselves, so in a more extreme case like that, you might have to take the more drastic route just to protect yourself, like blocking them and cutting ties.
Making a change like this will make you healthier and happier, so even if it’s really hard in the moment, you’re strong for taking care of yourself ❤ It’s an important learning process though not an easy one. I know a year and a half ago I probably wouldn’t have been able to answer this at all, but I was really just so naive, and now I’m glad to say I’m wiser and happier for it.
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