I once received a text from a girl I know and it went like this: “I know you’ve broken up with me and I just wanted to say I’m sorry if I’ve been hard work.”
Not quite sure how to respond to that one! So I didn’t. It was true. I had phased her out of my life through benign neglect rather than confronting break-up. She was just…..HARD WORK.
Toxic friends. They come in so many ugly varieties. Friends who are energy vampires. Friends who are only interested in your life when it’s going badly. Friends who are only there for the good times. Friends who betray your trust. How do you break up with them? Please discuss.
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I love your writing, Mia BUT - i just had someone call me 'toxic' and, it made me feel like dying, literally, I have PTSD, Depression and an Eating Disorder - what had i done to this person? object to her comment on face book about how i was feeling. Thus I was labelled 'TOXIC' and 'Hard Work" when do we only want simple people in out lives? there are hundereds of complex people out there who might need support, have issues you don't agree with but why does that make them toxic or any the less friend-worthy. I asked virtually nothing of this girl (not worthy of woman to me any more) but was labelled toxic because as far as i can see, I am ill and thus misinterpreted her comment, replied to her about it in private and thus am too much hard work - fine, her call, call me needy, wrong anything else but the use of 'toxic' to discribe a person is just WRONG "unlikeable"-fine, "I hate you"- fine. but TOXIC implies poisionous to everyone and THAT is a vile, evil and wrong judgement to make about any average normal non murdering raping person.
This is a topic that is very close to my heart. I still feel traumatised about the break up with my former best friend, and do wonder on occaision whether I could have dealt with it better, although the reaction from mutual friends (she has had fallings out with several people) to this suggestion is a resounding: 'No, she's crazy!'.
I was an ignorer/hider, but I had been drained to the point of literally having nothing left to give, even an explanation. She had been smothering me and criticising me for a number of months, whilst treating me as some kind of pseudo-boyfriend. It was when she finally wrote me a multiple paragraph email detailing all of the reasons why I was a terrible person who had acted ingratefully in return for her years of friendship that I finally snapped and cut her off. She used examples such as conversations at university five years prior where a third party was bitching about me and she'd defended me.
I realised that the friendship was some kind of point scoring game and I would never measure up to her paranoid expectations. It was hard, because I don't doubt that to this day she has no idea of the impact and toxicity that she has on others, and I do wonder if outlining this to her may have helped. I am still not sure, it may have just been more fuel for her nobody appreciates me fire.
It took me a number of years - I was in my mid twenties - to realise that friendship just doesn't need to be draining and filled with negativity and bad feelings. Friends are there to help you through the bad times and share the good times with, not to create the bad times for you!
I do have less friends these days, but they always leave me feeling happy and energised these days and that's worth any number of energy vampires.