How Can I Tell If My Friend Is Actually Toxic?

You can easily identify a toxic friend within the short period of time. Well, that’s true, but let me assure you that I have solid evidence to support my claim.

Over the course of the last 120 days, I clearly got rid of 3 out of my friendships that are actually really sorts of toxic. I was able to gain better mental health and build confidence in my own abilities. I had stronger, healthier relation when it came to interacting with those I considered my real friends. I learned to set boundaries and prioritize my well-being.

All of it happened in the space of 4 months. I think I actually modified my social lifestyle in those couple of weeks.

I had friendships for years, but only in the last 4 months since I began practicing four simple behaviors to grow healthy friendships, I uncovered toxic friendships.

1. The Energy Check After Hangouts

A friend cannot destroy your life, but he/she can diminish your energy and shift your mood. Personally, if a person makes you feel tired mentally, drained, and one that consistently makes you doubt your self-worth immediately after you both hang out, there could be a high chance that they have toxic tendencies.

You cannot run from negative people fully, but you can be conscious of the effect they have on your mood. Trust your gut, baby!

After every hangout, I began doing something that aided me in discovering energy vampires. It’s simple but effective. Looking back at those years, this habit became the stepping stone for me to be able to distinguish which friendships are not healthy. It helped me to cease making excuses for friends, who made me feel worse.

It is a habit which will not take you more than one minute to do therefore you can do it at any given time.

After spend time with your friends, have some time for you, take a moment alone.
Reflect and ponder over these questions: “How do I feel after being interacting with that person (i mean your friend)?”
Say you’re honest feelings out loud. No matter if it is uncomfortable.
Rate your energy levels on a scale of 1–10.

That’s about it, you can actually determine toxic friendships with this after each encounter or interaction. It was as easy as that, adopting this simple habit, I was more alert and had the impetus to deal with the negatives that friendships with certain people were bringing into my life.

2. A Quick Fix for Friendship Anxiety

Whether or whether a friendship is healthy, people invest a lot of time and energy in it. This implies that in order to get the ultimate objective of the friendship process — the golden relationship — you must never give up.

A companion who supports you and accepts you for who you are.

Just like most of the people we interact with aren’t best buddies, some are actually just routines, it might take time to build good relationships.

You need to invest time in friends, but you also need to know how to recharge your mind within minutes when a toxic person drains you.

Honestly, I always felt so drained after spending time with some of my friends. Whether it lasted 20 minutes is irrelevant is all that matters. It became certain that I would find myself taking time to recover until I would force myself to work through the guilt I had induced.

Perhaps that’s the easiest way to free my mind from toxic people interactions, which happened to me few times today. Minimum basic self-care regime that helps in the raise of energy and emotional steadiness.

Take a short walk around the block to help you to clear your thoughts.
Shoot a message to a supportive friend or a family member to have a word or two.
Try to pamper yourself a little bit, for instance, have a snack that you like or watch a few minutes of your favorite series.

First, self-care is the building block of emotional strength and so I practice self-care such as doing a quick self-care regime when I feel that I have been drained by an interaction with people.

These are simple exercises that help to free my emotions to work on the experience that I have just had. They allow me to clear up the mess in my head about the friendship.

3. A One-Minute Boundary Setting

I did not establish limits with friends for years, because I was scared of a way they might react if I were to do so.

I wasn’t asserting myself, so I thought no one would respect my limits. Also, I didn’t want the extra pressure of potentially damaging friendships. I finally set my first real boundary 18 months ago when I couldn’t take the constant negativity anymore. I just couldn’t contain my need for positivity.

After that, I started setting boundaries with family and friends, and I became more confident in my relationships. In my circle, this is a novel concept, so everyone is curious about how I do it. It’s natural to be curious but rather challenging to implement.

So, only my closest friends know my real boundaries, and everyone else gets a simplified version. I tell everyone a modest boundary because I simply don’t want to overwhelm them. The fear of confrontation used to gnaw at my soul.

Start with small, manageable boundaries until you build confidence.
If you’re not comfortable asserting yourself fully, start with “I” statements.
Protect your emotional well-being at all costs.

This one-minute boundary setting can save you hours of frustration and resentment.

4. Red Flag Journaling for Friendship Analyzers

I am the biggest over-thinker when it comes to friendships (I am exaggerating but still, there’s a little truth in it).

If I sense something off in a friendship, I’ll analyze it to death, and an overthinker never wants to confront. You’ll do everything in your power to avoid addressing issues directly. So, I overthought my friendships for more than two years and it poisoned my relationships.

I would feel anxious at the end of every interaction, the stress of not addressing issues actually made me withdraw from friends.

That night i was tossing and turning myself in the bed for hours. Then i decided to write down my racing thoughts. And after that I slept peacefully after I journaled. It was good sleep.

I knew I had to follow a routine that would help me process my feelings daily to form a healthy habit, but I was self-aware enough to know that I couldn’t commit to lengthy journaling sessions.

So, I made a bare minimum red flag journaling template that helps me identify toxic patterns but didn’t get in the way of my busy schedule.

Dedicate only five minutes a day to red flag journaling.
Any more, and you’ll push yourself into overthinking territory.
Write down any behaviors or incidents that made you uncomfortable.
Make sure it’s specific and related to actual events, not assumptions.
In those five minutes, you can either journal or do nothing.

This one, very basic, red flag journaling habit helped me develop an awareness that transformed my friendships. I am not gonna lie, first few times were tough, though writing a journal was always less depressing than suffering in silence.

This habit required me to develop a pattern that covered both my analysis processes that I needed and the actions that I had to undertake.

Now Tie It All Together

A lot can happen in six months, you can change the quality of your friendships in 180 days if you try.

End your social interactions with an energy check.
Add tidbits of self-care to your day for better emotional management.
Set small boundaries to start, if you’re not comfortable with big ones.
Put the pro in processing with red flag journaling.

Well, to clarify, these four changes helped me realize what toxic friendships were and be able to avoid them and rid them from my life, so give them a shot and tell me how it goes.

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I hope you enjoyed reading. This blog post comes from what I’ve learned, what I think, and what I believe.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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From The Good Men Project on Medium

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