Our friends are meant to be some of the most important people we know. They are always meant to have our backs and will do anything for us as long as it helps us feel happier and a lot more supportive in life. I’m sure that you would do the exact same thing for all of them as well! However, friendships aren’t always quite as good as they should be. When things start to go bad with your friends, then you might find yourself in the middle of a toxic friendship.

Not very many people realize when they are in a toxic friendship. Even if they have an inkling that something might not be quite right with their friends, they might still not really believe what their gut is telling them. This is especially the case with women who have been friends for years, even since childhood. They might not want to believe that it’s time to cut ties with some of their former close friends. However, if the toxic friendship is damaging your health then it really is time to bring it to a close. Here are a few things that might suggest your friendship has become toxic and could start to damage your health.

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They Pressure You Into Being A Different Person

Your friends should be happy with you how you are. However, if you feel that your friends are pressuring you in any way to change yourself then it is a bad sign. For instance, they might be pressuring you to conform with all of the latest fashion trends when you really don’t want to. They also might be trying to force you to do things that you don’t really want to do as well. At the end of the day, true friends would never try to place any pressure on you whatsoever.

They Might Reinforce Your Bad Habits

We all have those friends who try to persuade us to stay out later than we should so that we can enjoy one more drink together. Every now and then that is completely fine. However, if a friend is reinforcing some bad habits that could become dangerous, such as regular binge drinking, taking drugs, or excessive smoking, then you really should reconsider the friendship. If necessary, you should take yourself off to alcohol or drug rehab and cut any ties with this friend altogether. This kind of behavior could be very damaging to your health and it really isn’t worth risking it at all.

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The Relationship With Them Is One-Way

Being in a friendship with someone means that you should both support each other. However, sometimes this kind of relationship can turn very one-way. For instance, you might find that you are constantly supporting your friend and offering them a lot of help in their life but never really get anything back from them. This isn’t very fair on you, especially if you are going through a very difficult time in your life. It’s worth discussing this with them as they might not realize that they aren’t being very supportive of you. If that doesn’t seem to change anything for the better, then it could be time to bring the friendship to a close for good. Otherwise, they could just keep on zapping your energy for nothing in return.

They Often Seem Very Jealous Of You

Your friends should never be jealous of you. After all, I’m sure that you will be really happy for them whenever something good happens in their life. The same needs to go for them whenever something good happens to you too. Unfortunately, though, this isn’t the case and you might find that some people suffer a case of the green-eyed monster. If you find that one or two friends are always acting very jealous whenever you achieve something in life, then it’s not worth having them in your life. They will only be spreading negativity when instead they should be helping you enjoy these fantastic moments.

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It Feels Like They Are Keeping Score

Similar to the point above about jealousy, you might find that some friends seem to be keeping score. They might see every life milestone they reach before you is something that makes them better than you, for instance. This obviously shouldn’t be the case between friends. You might find that this attitude from your friends could damage your mental health, so it’s important to get out of this kind of toxic relationship quickly.

Hopefully, these points don’t sound like your friends!

Mandy X

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Author: Mandy Kloppers

Mandy is a qualified therapist who treats depression, anxiety, OCD, PTSD, trauma, and many other types of mental health issues. She provides online therapy around the world for those needing support and also provides relationship counselling.