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I want to end a toxic friendship but am stuck. Urgent
My bestfriend left in 10th grade and I got into a group of friends it was fine for a while until I felt like I was getting more and more picked on. From getting my head pushed, grabbing my shoes and I ran after them with my socks wet, grabbing my phone and texting people without my permission, always being the target and more. Now I am in 12 grade and am so happy that we are staying home cause in 11th grade I would have mental breakdowns every week cause I felt so lost and stuck cause the person who was the key to all of this knew I have social anxiety and cant just up and leave to a different friend group so I felt like this person was taking advantage of that. I told myself that I would wait until graduation and cut them off but now I feel fake...and I feel fake to myself cause every time this person wants to talk to me I really really don't want to cause I know this person is going to try to find anything to pick on me about. And yet I force myself to respond cause I'm scared of the possibility that to we might go back to school in May and I really don't want drama I just want to leave this friendship. I am especially nervous if we do go back in May cause I don't know what this person is going to do. This person is very impulsive and might lash out and that the last thing I want. This person recently started to comment more on my story's and Instagram photo I believe he/she knows I am getting distant. Like today he/she messaged me saying how its almost my birthday. Once I saw that message my anxiety increased so much and I was about to breakdown. And the thing is, is that every time this person would be nice to me like once in a while I would rethink everything which has really took a toll on my mental health. I keep debating with myself. On one hand I really don't want to respond and want to end and I feel fake and cause I told myself I will never again put myself in that situation again but on the other hand I'm like just wait until graduation and you never have to see this person ever again. Idk..Idk..I feel so lost and suck please I need advice!
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Want to answer more questions in the Relationships category?
Maybe give some free advice about: Friendship?
These people are NOT your friends, they are toxic and bullying you. They are taking advantage of you because of your social anxiety and manipulating you. This is not what friends do. You should not be made to feel like this and you should not feel as though you are fake because it’s them with the problem not you. Please do not think that you are the problem when it is not. This is hurting you so much that your mental health is suffering and no one deserves that treatment that these so called “friends” are giving you.
My advice would be to end it now, leave and stay away from them. Do not wait until graduation because you will be waiting for a long time and by then you will probably have a breakdown and your mental health will suffer so much more than it already has. Please do not fall for them trying to be nice to you because it is likely that they are manipulating you into staying in that friendship group. They will probably keep doing that so do not fall for it. Cut all contact and set all of your social media profiles to private and if necessary, block them.
Is there someone you can talk to about this? maybe a guidance counsellor or a teacher you can trust? I know how hard it is to make friends when you have social anxiety but do not let that hold you back. You will eventually find friends, good friends that are nice and friendly not like the ones you have now. I know you may feel you need to stay with them because you feel like you can not talk to anyone and make new friends. I had a toxic friend who I stayed with because I thought I was not going to find any other friends but I learnt that staying in that toxic friendship was not good for me and my mental health. They will wear you down just like they did to me. It is better to get out now than stay with people like that. I eventually found friends I could trust and so can you.
There is also help available for social anxiety and I would suggest talking to your primary care doctor about the ways in which they can help you. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) can be helpful to those with social anxiety and it might be something that you could look into. Good luck with everything.
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I am so sorry that you are having to endure this, on top of having "social anxiety".Have you ever been in counseling? I'll bet it could help with the anxiety, as well as give you many useful coping tips. You might ask your parents about arranging this for you.
Bullying is never acceptable, in ANY form ! If it is happening at school, your teachers and counselors and the principal need to know about it and to take appropriate steps to curb it. They WILL !
The old saying goes..."With friends like this, who needs enemies?!" You do need some other friends, so you can leave these awful ones behind. They're really NOT your friends. Even ONE good friend is all you really need, to get through the rest of high school ! When you get ready, you can dump the rest of these jerks like hot potatoes!
So: Tell your parents, tell the adults at school.
Ask for counseling. Find one good new friend! You will get through this, and come out alive on the other end, just fine! Good wishes, good luck! ~Dr. Stephanie
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I can relate but in other ways. I was also one with social anxiety when preschool through last year of high school. I was teased some, mild bullying, to mean it means no touching me or taking things of mine, just mostly verbal and then, of all things, had the bad luck of marrying at 20 to a guy who ended up verbally abusing me all of our marriage. So thats to let you know I can relate. Now you wish to leave, so did I, but I didn't until it was a matter of my living or dying. I got this from a dream from God or my angels that I had the choice to stay and die from the stress in 4 years time...thats what I heard, or leave, and live to see my kids married and become a Grandma. I left but not til my late forties. Its not easy, its a process but you can be free of social anxiety and also able to leave anythng toxic, a person, a job, etc. I learned that you may as well really learn the lesson to love yourself enough to remove yourself from a toxic person. We can not change other people, Change must come from within a person with a want to get better. I won't address when or if your school starts up or graduation or any of that because they aren't the problem, the problem we all must admit and I did too, was that I was the problem for my misery. Yes, I had a mean husband but at least he didn't chain me up in the house and not allow me to see even my family, and there are plenty of women for whom that horror is for real. So if you are not a prisoner in any way, it boils down to you leaving. I had my own reasons, misguided church beliefs that I wanted to follow which kept me there. Apparently the thing I heard most, "Trust God to heal your marriage", was a false thing to be taught. It sounded good. But God explained that in order for Him to heal my husband and make him a good marriage partner, that he would have to take away the free will He gave everyone, including your so called friend, so if He were to program a mean person instantly into a nice one like a robot, then it isn't that person having the opportunity to learn to seek God themselves, the choice was already made for them. that was profound to me. So facing possible death was something that made me want to do something about my situation. I don't know what will trigger you but until you learn how to leave and stay out of future situations with a toxic person, these situations will come up your whole life, until you learn and do what you have to do to protect yourself. You probably won't have a death sentence of four years time, or leave and change the future kind of thing. Just know that the stress brought on by toxic stuff, is not going to just sit there and do nothing. I learned that stress has to go somewhere, and so it goes into the mind and the person either starts acting crazy or gets depressed and may kill themselves or the stress goes into the body creating many illnesses than can be brought on by stress and that's what I got. I no longer even have headaches which I suffered from almost daily. So if life or death will give you the power to do what you have to, think of it this way, suicide is death but in life, you find that people with cancer or some heart illness don't usually die instantly but their life is cut short and the cause will e due to stress from something toxic in your life. My Mom had died of cancer and Dad from heart related things so since that ran in family, I wasn't going to take chances on contracting one of those from stress and eventually dying of it. So yes, at some point in the future, it will probably bring you to the point of losing your life.
Another obstacle to cutting her out of your life might be feelings of guilt and as you called it, feeling fake. Theres nothing fake about deserving to be treated decently as a human being. But we live in a world where the worst things that can happen to us is what another human does to us. So how you feel about this is a way of holding you back. I had mixed feelings when others said it would be a selfish move for me to leave my then husband, now ex. God told me I had to learn to love myself 100% because though I did love myself in many ways, it wasn't 100% because I was allowing myself to stay with a man who broke all his vows to me early on. I was reminded of a garden hose and told to imagine I was the hose and the water that flowed through the hose, or me, was what I had to give the world and make it a better place. That water is love and loving people can make a big change for them, however if I didn't take the time to take care of myself first, no one else will and without care, I as a hose can end up cracked, so water is leaking or a kink in a hose so no water can flow. So the hose can't make an impact on the world. Neither can I or you if we don't take care of ourselves first. I was even given a Bible scripture that confirms that. One person told me, there's no use waiting for someone else to rescue me as there will be no one, not for something like this that involves my choice, remember I was not a prisoner. Once I had been gone a year, I came back for birth of my first gtrandchild. At that time, a male friend of family was single too and wanted to start seeing me, and within no time, got an apartment together. I couldnt afford the whole thing, the same reason it took me so long to leave the ex, financial reasons of how will the kids and I survive? So when in no time at all the new guy in my life began bossing me around, ordering me to do certain things, I had a brief thought of fear, followed by the insight of 'OMG, this is a test. Did I learn with my ex only to allow this to happen all over again with someone else? Not me. I put my foot down and he walked out on me leaving me with an apartment I couldn't afford and had to leave in a weeks time. I had no idea how things would work out, but because I came through my test in flying colors, I was offered a place to stay free at a friends and while there, because I was ready and had learned to love myself enough to screen out anything/anyone toxic in my life. You said:
" I told myself I will never again put myself in that situation again but on the other hand I'm like just wait until graduation and you never have to see this person ever again. " What you forget is that she still has control over you even though you are not seeing her. Its what she texts or says on line that is getting to you. So obviously its not being apart or never seeing her again that will help. I already told you my story. There will be plenty chances for the same to continue to happen to you until you do what you have to do. You may not be ready yet to cut her out in all ways. Also, you may seriously study on what makes a friend, a friendly acquaintance , and what makes an enemy. Because your knowing someone doesn't make them a friend automatically, but one of two things: 1.a friendly acquaintance if they treat you civilly but don't hang out together, like all the classmates you know from classes together but aren't close or
2. They treat you like a lower class citizen, basically acting as an enemy and treating you that way. No respect, no love or care, physical and verbally abusing, and if any qualifies to be labeled fake, its her, not you. She tolerates you which has you thinking she is friendly. I remember wanting people to like me at that age. I know how important it feels, but all your peers are experiencing the same thing. Some will act out in bad ways to get the attention they crave which just might not be happening at home. Some kids who are igno, so they try to get what they consider any kind of care or attention by doing bad things. My guess will be that she is hurting inside and wants to forget it so she keeps doing whatever she can to forget. Some will transfer the anger they have at being treated unfairly to the next closest person who has little self confidence because they are easy to dump on, they hardly complain. Thats you and me girl. I never complained, never told the parents, not that they could help me. I am the one who had to change to save myselrf. Its your turn. If you dont learn it now, you may end up like I did, married to a jerk who seemed nice until a few days after the wedding. And walking out on a marriage, leaving and getting a divorce is a whole lot harder than learning now to leave a toxic friendship. Actually it bothers me to call it a friendship which I know it isn't. If you also want help with gaining self confidance, I can share what helped me. As for getting over social anxiety, that too, you can be free of and it isn't drugs, but a matter of not listening to and heeding any of your own generated thoughts that are distorted. ALL people have some distortion to their thoughts that will pop up life long but the difference is not focusing on a thought and imagining a horrific story line in your head to go along with it. So if you really want to work on the other stuff, let me know which or both and I will post in the advice for it which I have saved in a document to paste in.
Take care not to ask me for help in the place you can write a review of this advice. I can read it but not respond. I do not have a way of knowing who sent a question or where to send it back to. When I click the 'submit answer' button, that info is somewhere in the set up of Advicenators and will send this answer to you. I can not do that any other way so you must click on left at top, 'search advice columnists' and find my column under dragonflymagic where there will be a place to contact me. And since I don't know your name, you will have to refer in brief to your situation so I know who you are. Blessings to you!
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