When To Let Toxic Friends GO
Did you read the tweet above?
If the answer is Yes, well…check again.
I’m a young lady in her 20’s with a highly positive view to life, and quite frankly I could be pretty generous with my time. I would guess that those attributes were the reason a number of “damaged people” found me attractive.
To be more specific, I had this friend who had low self-esteem down to a science. She was pretty unsure of herself and would try to compare herself to everyone including me. She would casually talk about how she wanted to be slim like me, or talk like me. She also wanted a similar career path. It was quite despairing because this lady had “everything”. She came from a wealthy family, she was quite as much visually appealing and to be honest, she had a heart that was ready to learn. It wasn’t my first time dealing with people who weren’t sure of themselves. But it was coming at a time when I felt I was done trying to fix people. It always took a lot — sometimes you’re taking the heat, other times you are bleeding from the cut of an unhealthy friendship.
My friend got better with time; we went everywhere together, she took a course related to my career path and I wrote all of her assignments for her. If she had a presentation, I would pre-act the session and she would follow suite until it was near perfect and she got all the points correctly. She did like to ask questions and it helped her a lot, including questions like
“Why don’t you ever run even when you are late?”
“Why is your chin always up?”
“How did you get to be so fearless?”
And I would try to answer the best way I could. Then because my friend somewhat had a past that was somewhat gross, I decided to also share things about me that would make me seem supposedly weak too. “I couldn’t have had a perfect life…” And I really, I don’t. I wanted to be flawed so bad so I would tell her I had fears too, but it wasn’t enough. At a point, my friend went from been unsure of her herself or her admiration for me to looking for how to break me.
Maybe it was a standard too imposing ’cause she started to say so much about how my outfit wasn’t all that or how my hair would have been nicer if it was this way or that way. And lol, I liked it. She was becoming opinionated and it was a good way to learn confidence. We had a mutual older friend who would run ideas by me rather than my friend. He might have respected me a bit more so I constantly fought for her to be taken seriously too. It didn’t help. My friend then decided to manufacture stories about me. But it didn’t matter. But the envy became a bit more serious.
“She doesn’t mean it, she’s only hurting…”
I would say. But it kept on. So I stayed away. I have always known how to erect walls, so I did put one between us, the jealousy vibe I was getting from her was pretty unhealthy for me. I wanted to help but it was getting at me. She had a few other friends and they came up with gossips and slander. She dug for info on my phone, desperately sought anything to discredit me. I remember telling her once…
”You are trying too hard to bring me down. But you know I’m smart right? I’m 19 steps ahead b.”
It was true, before I did anything, I would usually consider at least 4, 5 possible outcomes. So it became a case of “catch me if you can…” And oh, it did hurt, because I really loved the friendship we had before the toxicity.
What’s the point of this story?
Sometimes, it’s okay to let go. Let toxic people go, even if you love them. Sometimes just prioritize and protect your peace, and for their sake too. Only the strong can shoulder the weak and you really can’t pour from an empty cup. So stop hurting and know when to let go.
We all grow up and some day they will too.
This article was first published by me in 2018.*