How do harmful friends affect your life?

Inconsiderate friends can have a significant impact on everything. But it's not always positive. Spending time with people who don't care about your feelings can ultimately affect your emotional and physical health.

1. Feeling lonely and isolated:

Spending time with friends should increase your sense of connection. However, harmful friends can make you feel neglected. If you're being left out of group plans, messages aren't being answered, and the friendship feels one-sided, it may not be a true friendship. It's better to share your time and energy with people who value your value and presence.

2. Stress increases:

One of the main benefits of strong friendships is reduced stress. While it may not always be 100% positive when you see your friends, you can usually see some improvement. Inconsiderate friends can add to stress rather than helping to reduce it. You may find yourself thinking too much about your negative interactions with them even when you're not around. This can make you feel stressed, irritable, and downright miserable.

3. Not feeling supported:

A good friend provides support when needed. Friendship usually involves listening sympathetically and acknowledging pain or difficulty.

A dishonest friend never feels that support or compassion is received. They ignore their friend’s problems or do not respond to their requests for help.

4. Hurts self-confidence and self-esteem:

When someone constantly puts you down and treats you badly, you gradually accept this behavior and stop expecting better. When you start believing the insults of such a friend and start doubting your own strengths and abilities, your self-esteem can decrease.

5. Blaming yourself for their behavior:

Associating with a bad friend can lead to self-doubt. If your friend is angry with you, you may feel guilty that they are angry because of you. You immediately blame yourself for not receiving support from your friend.

6. Feeling unbalanced:

People who behave in a toxic way can often make you doubt yourself. They can make you feel like you can't do the right thing. Inconsistent behavior, such as being happy at one moment, angry at the same time, creates confusion and imbalance.

These behaviors can lower your self-confidence and spread anxiety or sadness to other areas of your life. This can lead to uncertainty about how to proceed in a relationship with such a friend, which forces you to be constantly vigilant.

7. Other relationships are affected:

A harmful friendship can slowly but steadily poison other close relationships. When you start to doubt yourself, you can see yourself as a bad friend. Even if you don't doubt yourself, it can be difficult to trust others.

I may feel like everyone sees me as weak, boring, or unsupportive, and as a result, I start to ignore people. This prevents me from seeking support from people who really care, which makes me feel even more isolated and lonely.