I Ended A Toxic Friendship. 8 Reasons Why I Thought That Was The Right Thing To Do.

Ending a friendship is a tough choice but it needs to be done when necessary. In a toxic friendship, there is no support or compassion.

Your friends hardly care about your problems and ignore them for being 'petty'. A few years back, I found myself stuck in such a friendship. Moving away took some time but I knew it was important for the sake of my mental peace. So I decided to end my bond with the girl I became friends with in college and I don't regret my decision.

8 reasons why I took the step

1. Friendship shouldn't be a competition

Our friendship was not a relationship of equality. My friend would keep looking for an opportunity to make me feel inferior. I appreciated all her for her achievements and wished for her to prosper. But she would constantly remind me of my failures and how I should take 'inspiration' from her to do better in life. I begin to feel as though she wanted me to compete with her and secretly wished for me to lose.

2. Lack of trust

I never trusted her with my secrets. Keeping private things private is an unwritten friendship rule which she wouldn't follow. What was supposed to be between me and her would soon become a topic of discussion among others. I noticed that it became a pattern and decided to cut ties with her.

3. Picking up fights for no reason at all

Fights are common among friends. It becomes an issue to worry about when such fights become frequent and without any reason. When you say something but the other person misinterprets it and  overreacts, it's time to quit. Such people do not admit their fault and try to prove you wrong. This became a recurring event in our friendship and that's when I realised that I was actually in a toxic friendship.

4. Where there's no respect, friendship can't flourish

For a friendship to last long, there must be mutual respect. You need to respect each others' point of views and choices. If your friend disrespects you time and again, tries to control your decisions and think of themselves as 'all-knowing', you don't deserve such a friend. They believe its okay to misbehave when it clearly isn't. They aren't your superiors so such attitude is absolutely unacceptable.

5. Misunderstandings

Misunderstandings are meant to be sorted out but no matter how much we tried, things just didn't work out for us. We tried to clear confusions multiple times but it only led to uglier situations. Our misunderstandings just increased and the effort to reduce them was just not worth it.

6. Negativity

An important sign that will help you identify a toxic friendship is the constant negative vibes you get from your friend. In my case, my friend tried to pull me down and never appreciated me for anything I did. She never encouraged me and made me feel insignificant. I didn't understand how and why she turned into such a person but her presence in my life started affecting my mental health and I knew I had to move on.

7. Say no to selfish people around you

For friendships to keep functioning, there must be equal participation from both sides. I saw the relationship taking a turn where my friend thought of no one but herself. I would end up harming myself if I didn't choose to back out. Staying with a self centred person literally means staying with someone who doesn't care about your existence.

8. Friendship needs time to grow

When you are friends with someone, you need to give them time to make the bond stronger. Everyone has their own commitments and spending quality time together seems to be a difficult idea. But one can always take out a few minutes to check how one's friends are doing. That very warmth between me and her died away with the passing years and so did our friendship.

Views expressed are author's own