When a Friendship Implodes

I recently lost a friendship of four years. It wasn't over a minor issues. It was, perhaps, unavoidable. We both had differing ideas on what constituted "judging" and gentle, loving, honesty. She thought I was judging her for situations in her life, but was passing the same judgments she accused me of, onto my own life. I tried to be gentle and honest - without judgment of her or her choices - however, at the end of the day, we simply couldn't agree to disagree and move forward.

The thing is, this friendship started four and a half years ago during an extremely traumatic and stressful time in my life and hers both, which left us with a friendship, but also left us with a "trauma bond." Although neither of our situations at the time were related, we'd bonded over the similarities. Sometimes, friendships formed in this way will last a lifetime. However, in many cases, they will simply end over time, once the time of crisis is over with.

When you bond over something in your life that is awful, once one party - or even both - begin to heal and move past the trauma and stress of the situation, it becomes difficult to maintain that relationship if the sole glue holding the relationship together is the stress and turmoil of the situation you are in. In effect, these friendships will typically just "fizzle out" over time. In this instance, the friendship "imploded."

While I am proud of the fact that I did not resort to name-calling or personal insults, I did not raise my voice or say anything intentionally hurtful, I am hurt by the fact that she resorted to such tactics as she got extremely volatile when I set boundaries in place to protect myself and my mental and emotional health from a situation that she had going on.

I feel many things about this friendship ending - loss, sadness, frustration, perhaps a bit of anger, regret... and mainly, relief. I saw this coming a long time ago, although I don't think she did. I saw it coming, couldn't prevent it, but still kept trying to maintain a friendship that had itself become toxic for me. As our friendship imploded, I felt the tears roll down my face.

I love her and I will miss her. But I welcome peace and healing.

Removing Toxic People From Your Life

Life is hard. Even when things are going pretty good, there will be occasional struggles or obstacles in your way. This is especially true if you've already dealt with any type of hardship in your life. If you're like me, and you've gone through multiple struggles in your life - mental, emotional, abusive relationships, poverty, homelessness, physical, etc - then dealing with basic, everyday life can sometimes feel like a struggle.

This is why it's important to have a solid support system in place - whether you have good family and friends, a counselor and/or support group, online support groups, etc - everyone needs a support system. We all need people in our lives, even those of us who might claim to be "anti-social" or those who have "social anxiety." But what we don't need in our lives is toxic people and situations.

If you have someone in your life who is toxic, if they bring more drama than you care to deal with, if they mentally or emotionally drain you.. it's time to remove them from your life. Toxic people have no positive purpose in our lives and they have no place in our lives. We cannot grow and thrive if we are surrounded by toxic people or situations.

Beware the person who is "just being honest" and proceeds to tell you things that hurt you, your emotional and mental well-being... honesty is not an excuse for rudeness and true honesty is never cruel or hurtful. Beware those who will say they want what is best for you, but then will encourage situations or habits that will harm you. Don't allow someone to cause you to doubt yourself or question your abilities to make your own choices or reach your goals.

There are many out there who will claim to love and care about you - whether a family member, a friend, a romantic partner, etc... those who truly care about you will actually want what is best for you, without attempting to control you, tell you what to do, manipulate you, bring further stress and chaos to your life or treat you disrespectfully.

When it comes to removing toxic people from your life...  many times, you can do this without any type of confrontation. Simply cease all contact and avoid them - you'd be surprised how many people will simply let things go without a fight. In other cases, a very calm and direct "I'm ceasing contact because this situation/relationship is toxic for me" is given to the other person, then simply do not respond or make contact again.

Remember, you owe no one an explanation. And even if you explain yourself to someone who is toxic a million times, there are going to be those who will never accept or acknowledge your explanation as truth. There are even going to be those who argue with you and may fight to try to stay in your life. Don't allow them to.

It may require a court order or contacting the police and notifying them of the toxic individual's harassment and continued contact after you've asked them not to contact them again. You may be able to get away with simply blocking the individual and never hear from them again. If someone is being toxic in your life and you want to remove them - do so by whatever means necessary, you do not have to allow them to steal another moment of your peace and happiness.

We all have the right to have supportive, nonjudgmental people in our lives, we have the right to make decisions for ourselves without someone attempting to manipulate or control us. No one needs an energy or emotional vampire sucking them dry. Drop the toxic people and situations and watch your life become full of light and love again.

Make sure your circle is full of people who truly love and support you and want what is best for you. Say NO to negativity and toxicity, and don't look back. We all should live our lives as if they're too short-  because they are - and life is too short to live with toxic people and situations.