TOXIC FRIENDS | HOW TO BREAK UP WITH THEM

in today's video I'm gonna talk to you about why you should break up with your toxic friend and how to do it in the last year long I have opted out of three long-term friendships and I have seen the overall improvement of my mental health my productivity and my confidence yes you've heard correctly I said confidence there is nothing let me tell you there is nothing more reassuring than learning how to put yourself first before we move on please subscribe in don't forget to hit that notification bell so you will miss any of my future videos this is a topic of discussion I am constantly seeing in the online communities I'm a part of and using my own experience I wanted to chime in like I previously mentioned I have opted hour broke up with three long-term relationships just this year and it has not been easy one of these relationships was 15 years old before coming to that aha moment of realizing that these friendships were no longer serving me I spend a lot of time working through these issues compromising doing a lot of introspection until I no longer had it in me and see that's what's really hard about breaking up with a friend as opposed to breaking up at the lover from early childhood we are conditioned to look at friendships as long-term we make friends that lasts us through high school our college buddies become our lifetime pals no wonder why we have such an idealistic framework when we look at friendships and have such a hard time setting our boundaries or communicating our triggers to people we've known for so long I love referring to this Instagram quote if you're not losing friends you're not growing simply because in my particular situation it except eyes why in spite of all these friendships being long-term there has been a drift in my case I moved into the city I currently live in two years ago this was my college town one of my college towns I went to college in two different cities expecting to pick up right where I left off see I spent my early 20s in the city and I have the fondest memories with the friends that are still here in retrospect it was a little bit naive on my part to think moving back was enough to reinstate those friendships even after all these years so I'm curious are you still friends with people from high school or college please comment below I would love to know back to my particular situation I am nowhere near the same party girl that lived here 10 years ago my world views have developed I am in a committed relationship of eight years and I predominantly work online after the excitement of being back started to settle it became more and more apparent that things were not the same I was not the same with one friend the chemistry started to dwindle I was getting a lot of pushback from another friend who was simply not respecting my boundaries and even more serious I had a friend who was battling the substance abuse issues and after many fell attempts helping and being there for them I just simply couldn't be a part of that while these were separate friends separate people they all had one thing in common those relationships were toxic so what constitutes a toxic friend you asked I think in order to understand what makes a friendship toxic we need to look within ourselves and evaluate how spending time with those friends makes us feel do you feel supported by your friend is your friend constantly putting you down in the name of brutal honesty and watch out for this one is your friend being honest at a moral obligation or she just delivering the message for the brutality do you find your friends overall attitude draining is she negative are they constantly complaining I you left feeling satisfied after spending time with your friends do you often put your friends comfort before your own before I continue I want to make the distinction between allowing people in your life who can only serve your goals careers social media engagement that's a thing in any other tangible purpose and people who serve you on an emotional or even spiritual level for me I just want to be around whoa whose company and truly enjoy or that our overall positive life is not a sitcom and I think it is our responsibility to curb any unrealistic expectations we put on our friends I also want to add that not every single behavior we might dislike from our friends needs to be labeled as toxic much like in romantic relationships friendships can lack chemistry people change life gets in the way and sometimes we simply lose interest and that's okay so what now you just confirmed why you suspected all along your friend is toxic and you want out of that relationship how do you do it well it's not easy in fact it could be really really awkward but the good news is that if you've been wearing about this for a while once you get through it you're gonna feel pretty relieved when I think about all the energy I just spent just last year trying to make this friendships work accommodating people's needs before my own I am mortified I spent so much time agonizing over making plans hanging out of obligation in the cycle that I was trapped in was bringing me a lot of unnecessary stress now that I'm able to look back with much more clarity I know I did the right thing my circle has gotten smaller in fact it's not really a circle anymore but my peace of mind has become well-rounded my weekends are quiet and stress-free and moving forward I have the confidence in my ability to never find myself in that situation again my first piece of advice is to slowly wean off and I know you guys are gonna find this one controversial but hear me out this is something you can start doing right after watching this video you don't have to unfollow your friend and all of your social medias but you can mute them on Instagram you can stop interacting with their Facebook and stop texting as much the idea is not to cut off all communication but to start becoming less and less available so that your friend hopefully gets the hint if by any chance you are in such a highly talk SiC friendship that your physical or emotional well-being is in danger stop all communications now and tell someone you trust I don't really recommend breaking up with your friend in person just because that's gonna lend the opportunity for confrontation a lot more drama sending a text will do the job do tell them what about their behavior has cost you to feel this way and end the relationship now things get a little bit more complicated when you share mutual friends with this toxic person in this case you might not be able to completely cut them off without getting your friends involved and trust me your friends don't want to be involved I've been there and it sucks so if you can't cut them off try to minimize the time you spend around that for example if one-on-one interactions with this friend leave you feeling completely drained you might want to try only hanging out in group settings the point is to start taking action however small and stop doing things that make you miserable in order to accommodate other people much like other relationships friendships are transactional and they can only be sustained by compromise compromising on a place to eat once in a while is not the same as always compromising to meet your friends demands or needs I used to have this friend who simply couldn't deal with the change of plans if we had agreed to meet at a restaurant at a certain day of the week there was just no room to change that this friend couldn't handle it the slightest change of plans will bring on high levels of miscommunication sometimes emotional outbursts if I was in in a committed partnership that takes priority or was pursuing an online business that requires my attention at a moment's notice or was dealing with a post-traumatic stress disorder that was triggered by driving I could potentially have met my friend's expectations but that's juvenile and it's a far cry from reality we're no longer in high school where our worlds were centered around our friendships we have responsibilities all the relationships to tend to and our mental health which can be a full-time job for a lot of us other examples of toxic behavior include friends who take from you and never pay back they ask for favours they ask for money they ask for your time they ask for your support but they can never be there when you most need them another example of a toxic friend can simply be someone that is emotionally unhealthy unaware in my case I have been putting in a lot of work into my mental health my self development and being around people that lack just that basic awareness of their own emotions their own mental health the way they navigate the world it's just it doesn't align with what I want to be and it has proven to bring a lot of conflict another example of toxic friendships could be friends that are jealous and resent you for hanging out with other people friends who ridicule and criticize every single thing you do there's it's one thing to roast our friends and you know have that banter that relationship of making fun of each other but you know when the line has been crossed between just a friendly tease versus someone that is constantly putting you down and I think it's important to add to this category friends who don't acknowledge your experience especially when it's different than theirs for example people of color when we're talking about gender identity sexuality income and equality immigration status disability etc it's the equivalent of saying you don't see color you don't see race if you are around people that don't see your unique perspective that could be a very toxic environment this is all I have for today I would love to hear from you if you had any experience with a toxic friend how was it what was the toxic behavior how did you handle it I will also love to hear your advice even if it differs from mine thank you for watching you can also find me on instagram at Camille underscore colossal and I'll see you in my next video

Channel: Camille Collazo

Views: 76,219

Rating: 4.950089 out of 5

Keywords: toxic friends, toxic friendships, how to cut off toxic friends, toxic relationships, toxic friend, toxic friendship, how to end a friendship, fake friends, how to move on, friendship advice, losing a friend, friend breakup, how to break up with a friend, how to get rid of a toxic friend, how to deal with toxic friends, how to get over a friendship breakup, how to get out of a toxic friendship, how to cut off a toxic friend, ending a friendship, signs of a toxic friend

Id: XqAba_ya-YQ

Length: 10min 58sec (658 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 06 2019