Friendships can have a huge impact on how we feel about ourselves. The right friends can make us feel supported, understood and able to be ourselves. In fact, the Mental Health Foundation explains that friendships can play an important role in protecting our mental health and helping us manage difficult experiences (Mental Health Foundation, 2021).
But friendships aren’t always easy. People fall out, grow apart and sometimes say things they regret. Having an argument doesn’t automatically make a friendship unhealthy. The difference is often in the pattern. If a friendship regularly leaves you feeling anxious, controlled, excluded or bad about yourself, it might be time to look more closely at what’s happening.
1. You Feel Worse After Spending Time With Them
One of the biggest signs can simply be how you feel around someone. Do you regularly leave conversations feeling drained? Do you overthink everything you said afterwards? Maybe you notice that your confidence drops whenever you’ve spent time with them.
Healthy friendships can support our wellbeing, while the quality of our relationships matters more than simply having lots of people around us (Mental Health Foundation, n.d.). Of course, supporting a friend through a difficult time can sometimes be emotionally tiring. But if you’re consistently feeling worse because of how they treat you, that’s worth paying attention to.
2. Their ‘Jokes’ Keep Hurting You
Teasing each other can be a completely normal part of friendship. But there’s a difference between laughing with someone and constantly laughing at them. Maybe they make comments about your appearance, relationships or insecurities and then tell you that you’re ‘too sensitive’ when you react.
Childline warns that repeatedly embarrassing someone, putting them down or making jokes at their expense can cross into bullying behaviour (Childline, n.d.).
A good question to ask yourself is: If I’ve told them something hurts me, do they actually try to stop? Someone doesn’t get to decide that something wasn’t hurtful just because they meant it as a joke.
3. You Feel Guilty for Having Other Friends
Your friend doesn’t have to love everyone else you spend time with. However, they should still respect that you have a life outside your friendship. It can become unhealthy when someone makes you feel guilty for seeing other people, gets angry when you don’t invite them somewhere or tries to isolate you from a group. YoungMinds identifies making someone feel guilty or uncomfortable about spending time with others as a potential sign of an unhealthy friendship (YoungMinds, n.d.).
Friendship shouldn’t feel like ownership. You’re allowed to have more than one important person in your life.
4. Your Boundaries Aren’t Respected
A boundary is essentially a limit that helps you feel comfortable and safe in a relationship. It could mean saying you don’t want to talk about something personal, needing some time alone or saying no to something you don’t feel comfortable doing. The NHS recommends setting boundaries in relationships and thinking realistically about what support you are able to give while still protecting your own wellbeing (NHS, n.d.).
A friend might accidentally cross a boundary once, particularly if they didn’t know it existed. The bigger problem is when you’ve explained how you feel and they repeatedly ignore it. Someone caring about you doesn’t mean they’re entitled to unlimited access to your time, attention or personal life.
5. The Friendship Feels One-Sided
No friendship will be exactly 50/50 all of the time. Sometimes your friend might be struggling and need more support. Other times, you’ll be the person who needs someone to listen.
But think about the friendship overall. Are you always the one sending the first message? Making the plans? Checking whether they’re, okay? Listening to their problems? And when you need the same support, are they there?
Friendships where one person continually gives more than they receive is a possible sign of an unhealthy dynamic. You shouldn’t have to constantly prove that you’re worth someone’s effort.
6. You’re Scared of Their Reaction
Do you ever find yourself changing what you say because you’re worried they’ll get angry? Maybe you hide the fact that you’re seeing another friend, agree with them to avoid an argument or spend ages working out how to word a message so they won’t take it badly.
Caring about someone’s feelings is normal. Feeling responsible for preventing every negative emotion they experience isn’t.
Healthy relationships should allow for open and honest communication. The NHS explains that being able to talk openly about how you feel and listen to each other can strengthen relationships and protect mental wellbeing (NHS, n.d.). You should be able to disagree with a friend without feeling frightened about what they’ll do afterwards.
7. You Don’t Feel Like Yourself Anymore
Sometimes there isn’t one dramatic moment that makes you realise a friendship isn’t healthy. Instead, you slowly notice that you’ve started changing yourself around them. Maybe you avoid wearing certain clothes because they’ll comment on them. You pretend to like things you don’t. You stop sharing good news because you know they’ll turn it into a competition.
Healthy friendships should give you space to be yourself. The Mental Health Foundation encourages young people to think about how relationships with their peers make them feel and whether those relationships support their wellbeing (Mental Health Foundation, n.d.).
You shouldn’t have to make yourself smaller to keep somebody else comfortable.
What Should You Do?
Recognising some of these signs doesn’t automatically mean you need to end the friendship. If you feel comfortable and safe doing so, try talking to them. Explain what’s been bothering you and give them the opportunity to listen.
Their response can tell you a lot. Someone might genuinely not realise they’ve hurt you and make an effort to change. But if they repeatedly dismiss your feelings, ignore your boundaries or continue treating you badly, it may be healthier to create some distance.
If you’re struggling to deal with the situation alone, talk to somebody you trust. This could be a parent, teacher, counsellor, youth worker or another friend. Childline also recommends speaking to someone outside the friendship or a trusted adult if you’re unsure how to deal with a friend’s behaviour (Childline, n.d.).
Final Thoughts
Friendships aren’t supposed to be perfect. You’ll disagree, annoy each other and sometimes get things wrong. What matters is whether there is respect, trust and space for both people to be themselves. Sometimes growing up also means realising that someone who used to be good for you might not be anymore. Walking away from an unhealthy friendship doesn’t mean the good memories weren’t real. It simply means you’re recognising what you need from your relationships now.
And sometimes, one of the healthiest things you can do is ask yourself: Do I actually feel good about who I am when I’m around this person?
References
Childline (n.d.) Friendship problems. NSPCC.
Mental Health Foundation (2021) Friendship and mental health. Mental Health Foundation.
Mental Health Foundation (n.d.) Healthy relationships. Mental Health Foundation.
NHS (n.d.) Maintaining healthy relationships and mental wellbeing. Every Mind Matters, NHS.
YoungMinds (n.d.) Friendships. YoungMinds.
