here’s a hard pill to swallow: abuse does not just exclusively occur in romantic or family relationships. friends can be just as toxic to your physical and mental wellbeing as a partner or a family member. also, the aftermath of being in an abusive friendship can be just as traumatizing as any other abusive relationship. don’t boo me i’m right
for some reason people don't know this but toxic friends can mirror all the same behaviors as seen in an abusive romantic partner. i will use my own story of my ex-high school best friend who abused me for several years. signs of abuse include but are not limited to:
- Humiliating or embarrassing you - my ex-best friend LOVED to try and make me squirm in any way possible to see my reaction. once she went up to a guy and told him i had a crush on him to watch me struggle to explain myself
- Unreasonable jealousy - if i so much as went to hang out with any of my other friends i would have to let my ex-best friend know beforehand. i pretty much had to get her permission to see other people or she would be convinced that i was ‘ditching her forever’
- Refusing to communicate - if she was ever angry with me or upset she would never tell me that so we could talk about it. instead, she would ignore me or respond to all my texts with ‘k’ or ‘ya’ and i would have to struggle for hours to get her to tell me what was wrong
- Ignoring or excluding you - she would ignore me for weeks at a time as a ‘punishment’ knowing that it would eat me up inside wondering what i did wrong. i still remember spending nights wide awake crying in bed because i didn’t know what to do
- Mean jokes or constantly making fun of you - she would constantly poke fun at my appearance and personality to where my self-confidence plummeted. god help me if i ever said anything about her though
- Saying things like “If you don’t _____, I will_____.” - she would constantly threaten to kill herself if i didn't do what she wanted
- Guilt trips - she never apologized once to me in our seven-plus years of being friends. not once. every time we argued i would be the one who apologized in the end. once when i stood up to her and called her out on treating me like crap she would make up a story of how her life was miserable and that i was making things worse
- Isolating you from friends and family - been mentioned before but she was extremely jealous of all my other relationships and would override my plans with other people on purpose and would guilt trip me if i still went to see them
- Domination and control - also mentioned before but i needed her permission on everything. if i joined any group or extracurricular activity without her knowing she would be furious
- Extreme moodiness - after ignoring me for weeks she would contact me out of the blue and act as if nothing happened. she would also refuse to talk about why she ignored me for so long and did not care if my mental health suffered from it
anyway, abusive friendships need to be acknowledged more because they are not only extremely common but also very damaging to someone’s mental health. i personally had to go through years of therapy to unlearn the guilt and self-hatred that my ex-friend helped instill in me. stay safe yall
a GREAT addition from @mememic-bry
#also- because sometimes I think people throw around words like ‘abuse’ a little carelessly on this site #people who aren’t abusive sometimes might do one or two things on this list #because people are flawed #and sometimes we screw up and hurt each other and it’s ouch and it sucks #if your friend does one of these things once they are not an abuser and please don’t bring it up by saying ‘you’re being abusive’ #instead say ‘hey this specific thing you did hurt me and here’s why it was p stressful’ #and a good friend will hear you out. maybe they will get defensive or sad (cause who *likes* being called out let’s be real) #but ultimately they will listen to you. they will own up to their actions. #and they will make a genuine effort to not act in that way that hurt you again
#ON THE OTHER HAND #an abusive person will do several of these things *repeatedly* and *consistently*. it is a pattern woven in your relationship #and it just keeps happening #and if you try to bring it up they will deny any ownership of their actions #they will either say they never did those things OR that they *DID* but it’s not their fault #every single time they will gaslight you or make themselves the victim and refuse to hold themselves accountable for hurting you #that’s an abuser. that’s a toxic friend
