Toxic Friendships

Ok, just when I think that I am done posting random stuff, what should appear on the Yahoo main page but a topic that has been in the forefront of my thoughts: 9 signs of a Toxic Friendship. When I had Myspace, I stumbled upon an article describing the different types of toxic friends and reposted it as a blog. I wondered why it spoke to me at the time, but 6 months later I know why. I was in a toxic friendship, and because of that friendship I was becoming toxic myself. WOW, that was hard to admit. I was becoming toxic to those around me because I could not see what was happening, I basically had blinders on. It took my co-worker telling me that I seemed a lot happier and more stable since the friendship ended to open my eyes. She looked me in the eye and said "She was sucking you dry Mary. You cared so much that you put your own problems on hold for this girls and focused on her. It drained you because you needed to deal with what was going on in your own life, instead the friend added to it." WOW - and now that I have completely removed myself from the situation I can see what she was saying. And don't get me wrong, I'm sure towards the end I was toxic to that friend also.

I am going to cut and paste a few things from today's Yahoo article that jumped out at me:

Hence, friends have become a fabric of our lives — which also explains why it hurts us so when a friendship is fraught with confusion, heartache and tears. Let’s face it: A mean friend is just as scarring as a bad mother or husband. This is similar to the conclusion made by Barash, which compelled her to explore the key components of damaging relationships and also provide women advice on how to detect such harmful friendships. Here we asked Barash to share with us the signs of a toxic friendship — and how to disengage.

3) Your friend wasn’t there for you. It’s sometimes hard to see if a friend is really a true pal until there is a life-changing moment in your life that requires the person’s support. This eye-opening event is called The Inciting Incident, which is when everything is going along fine, until wham! someone gets sick, or loses their job, or gets married or loses a loved one, and you find that the friend you thought would be by your side isn’t there for you at all. She doesn’t celebrate your good news nor does she help you in times of need. For some women it takes an "inciting incident" to finally notice that a friend is toxic.

4) Your friend is draining you: You feel you’re psychologically and emotionally giving all your energy to her and receiving nothing in return.

7) The relationship offers no return on investment: This is similar to a friend who is draining you – but this isn’t just an emotional give and take. If you are the one calling your friend to make plans and going out of your way to be with her, but she makes no attempt to go out of her way for you, then she’s not meeting you halfway.