on toxic friendships

Ah, toxic friends, we’ve all had some at some point in our lives. They are the complete antithesis of friends; instead of supporting and loving you, they belittle, and abuse you instead. My experience with them is probably no different than yours, but they can leave a lasting impact on you and not in a good way. In fact, I’m going to level with you, the trauma of getting betrayed or abused by some of those so called “friends” is one that I haven’t fully recovered from yet, but, I have made some very important steps in my recovery and learned some important tips and tricks that might hopefully help you out.

      My experience started when I was in 9th grade. I was looking forward to high school and having the best time ever because I had always heard that high school was this wonderful time, where you will “make more friends than ever before” and “live the good life partying and going out with your friends all the time. Using what I had learned from middle school, I went around and looked for my people. In a matter of no time, I found those people, they shared all of my interests. I grew very close to them very quickly as a result. Few months in however, things started to take a dark turn. After talking to one of my friends one day, I unknowingly offended her. In response, she began to act more like an oppressor and less like a friend. She began to constantly insult, and intimidate me, while also yelling at me spontaneously. This evolved into slander of my name towards other members of my friend group. They too began to turn against me and avoid me as a result. The mass betrayal really hurt me. What ultimately shook me to my core and scarred me was when one of those “friends” sold me out to my school counselor. My school counselor then told my parents what she told her. I was never the same since.

    The experience had many effects on me, some of those effects I worked passed. Others however, still affect me to this day. In the aftermath of the event, I developed a case of depression, social anxiety, low self-esteem, and a fear of opening up and being vulnerable. I was always told that I was a wonderful guy and anyone who was my friend would be lucky to have me. In my mind, how could that be if I was rejected by what I thought would be the only people at my school who could ever understand me and I could ever relate to at the time? I didn’t want to be vulnerable about my issues at the time because  also in my mind, it was being vulnerable and opening up that led to me being here. Still, a part of me wanted to make friends, but, I also feared doing so cause after all, wouldn’t they just all betray me anyway?

   However, I still got the help that I needed because ultimately I didn’t want to live this way. So, I went to see a therapist to talk about my feelings and issues. This was very helpful as it allowed me to better understand and drop the negative feelings, and depression that I had at the time. I also tried to put myself out there, even if doing so brought me tons of pain, trauma and fear at the time. While it did lead to some people rejecting and also turning out to be bad friends, I became more willing to be open, expand my social circle once more, and make a couple new friends along the way too. One thing that also helped me tremendously on this recovery journey was putting my faith in Christ as simply doing so had a great healing effect on me. If you too have been in a situation similar to mine, my advice to you would be to turn away from those people  immediately once you start to notice them treating you without respect, love, or regularly putting themselves first for real friends would never treat you like that. Trust me, you deserve better than to have people who do not respect or value you.

  Just like I have said at the beginning of this article though, I haven’t fully recovered from the experience yet and to this day, I still struggle with some problems related to it. For example, I start prematurely judging if someone likes me or not based on very small factors like when they text me, the pitch and tone of their voice when they talk to me, how they look at me, and many other small things. In other words, if I text you and you take hours or longer to respond, I start thinking things like “oh no, they hate me”, “I did something”, and “what possible reason could they have to hate me”. Although not as bad now, I developed a sort of dependence on the approval of others to try and remedy my pain and to “verify” that the person in question “doesn’t hate me”. Those two issues however, are currently being worked on and I have been learning to recover from them by also turning to professional help as well as friends, faces of trust, continuing to meet new people by putting myself out there, building and practicing self confidence, and trusting in/praising the lord. For you who are reading this, I hope I have been of help to you and have left behind something that you were able to relate with.

Until next time!!!
-Alejandro Mata 

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