by Adele Gregory

Created on: June 23, 2010

Most friendships people have are good enough and some are great. In good friendships, people are able to appreciate each other as positive and worthwhile individuals and can value the friendship for its own sake. Out of this appreciation springs other qualities of a healthy friendship such as support, collaboration and generosity.  In friendships that become “toxic” people's rights or wellbeing and the bond between you is regularly sacrificed to meet some other need.

Even in the best of relationships friends might do things that hurt or anger you. In toxic friendships, however, the problems are chronic. The same unwelcome patterns crop over and over with little improvement and take a toll on your self-confidence and wellbeing. Below are some areas that can signal the presence of these potentially toxic elements.  

Boundaries

Good friends respect each other’s autonomy and personal boundaries. Boundaries mark the line between what friends normally share and your rights as an individual. You have the right, for example, to make your own life choices, decide what to do with your personal time and property, have other relationships and say “no” to something you don’t want to do. A friend with poor respect for boundaries fails to recognize or deliberately ignores any need to limit their behaviour. They might take your things without asking, for example, or continue to phone you at work or late a night despite the fact that you’ve repeatedly asked them not to.

Boundaries can change from person to person and sometimes need to be discussed. What happens after the discussion is what determines whether the friendship is healthy or not. A good friend might be disappointed but will accept that you are within your rights. In a toxic friendship, a friend will imply that you have no rights or carry on as if the discussion never happened.  

Fear

Leaders might debate whether it’s better to be loved or feared, but in friendship there’s no such contest. When fear dictates how you interact with your friend, something’s wrong.  You may feel that you’re always walking on eggshells because you’ve seen your friend get nasty or withdraw if displeased.  Fear also comes into the equation when you believe you must be forever patient and available to prevent your friend coming to harm (in these cases, the best help you can give is to point them in the direction of professional

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