Toxic Friends: Ever Had One in Your Life?

Have you ever had a toxic friend in your life? Some of you may say "yes" and some of you may say "no". Some people may not be able to answer the question simply because they are not sure whether or not to call a current or past friendship; toxic. I have been asking people that question over the past several months as part of the research for my upcoming book on toxic friendships . I was surprised to learn that there were so many people who had had an experience with a toxic friend during their adult years! I personally had not had such an experience prior to meeting my former best friend almost three years ago when I was 41 years old.

My experience with her had a profound impact on my life. At one point I thought I was going crazy and for a long time I struggled with personal "whys"? Why did I allow this person into my personal space? Why can't I deal with her? Why do I get upset when she does or says so and so to me? Why do I continue to put up with her nonsense? There were a ton of "why" questions that I would frequently ask myself because I thought I was doing something wrong in the friendship. I was trying to be a "good" friend. I had lost much of who I was because I was trying to hold onto something that was literally destroying my life. After educating myself, I finally realized that my former best friend was indeed toxic. She had some serious issues long before she befriended me. She had not dealt with those issues in the past and even as our very close friendship was in tumoil, she had no intentions of dealing with them at that time either. She expected me to solve many of her personal problems and for a long time that's exactly what I did. I knew that I had gone well above the call of friendship duty and that it was time to remove her from my life completely and that's what I did. It was by no means an easy task...But it was what I had to do so that I could rediscover self. You or someone you know may have to do the same.