The first toxic friendship I can remember occurred when I was in my early teens. Through the peer pressure of a fearless kid named Randy, I followed his example through many underhanded adventures. One time we threw eggs at a kid's house and ran like hell. I liked the kid whose house we bombarded, yet I still persisted in overcoming my personal opinion and pelted the front door with a couple of eggs. Why did I do it? Ironically it was because Randy had a vendetta against Will, the kid whose house we egged. He thought Will was too smart and a show off, though in reality he was just a soft-spoken kid who liked to read. We also stole beer from our parents, snuck out of the house late at night, spent weekends on Dauphin Island without a word to anyone, stole wood from the neighboring subdivision as it was being constructed, made fun of everyone, skipped school, and performed many acts of mumbo jumbo with toilet paper and eggs. Most of these activities, I would have never considered had I not been influenced by the encouragement of Randy. We all do things while growing up that appall us later in life, but most kids manage to behave within some level-headed boundaries. Randy knew no boundaries, and had I not moved away before my junior year of high school, I may have ended up in junvenile detention with him.
Through the years, I moved around and met many people. Most I got along with and enjoyed learning about. The few I met where I felt no promise of friendship, we simply parted ways and didn't associate anymore. Occassionally I butted heads with others over whether lamb shanks should be braised or if the Vols had a chance against the Crimson Tide. Opinionated disagreements usually ended up diffused and at the end of the night we sat around like old chums, sharing beers and stories from the kitchen line. We solved our problems by accepting each other's individuality and differences of opinion. It was simple and effective. Toxicity was the last thing we wanted in our environment.
I had not even considered the idea of toxic friendships until recently when a friend shared an article with me. It was one of those "how to clean up your life" type articles, and it made sense. One of the signs of a toxic relationship is when you lose a sense of confidence when you associate with someone you think is close to you. Usually it is accentuated by criticism they claim is to help you become a better person. Another sign is when you acheive something, they are quick to point out how self-centered you must be to revel in your accomplishment. They accuse you of narcissism, mental illness, lack of empathy, closed-mindedness, or ineptitude. All of this under the premise that they value your friendship and want to work through issues. You endure it because you have invested time and energy into the relationship and quite possibly have even developed a level of pseudo-trust to where their words affect your emotional state. You never consider any of it as a projection of their insecurities. It all seems like it really is your fault and you must change or else you'll never be successful. Another sign of toxicity in "friendship" is when you are expected to put someone else's priorities over your own. If you don't take time out of your busy day to interject your sympathy and indentification into their personal struggles, you are branded as an egotistical child who will never understand the real world because you lack humility, compassion, insight, and depth of character.
I have never claimed to be some transcendent creature forged from the realm of enlightenment, but I do recognize my capacity to love and I work on developing awareness of how I could change to be better at communicating, better at listening, and better at indentifying with others. I am aware of how I have messed up in life and when my decisions have been selfish and misguided. I accept responsibility for my actions and I make honest efforts to ensure I am more careful. Regardless of my shortcomings, a true friend would be more inclined to clue me in to how I am messing up in life by telling me how I have disappointed them, instead of waging a character attack. A true friend would step up, question my motives, and point out how my actions are self-defeating, instead of attempting to defeat me through criticism and disdain. Even if a friend only gets in touch once in a while and it comes from a sincere place, it is far more valuable than being bombed by myopic vilification.
The articles all say that it's best to remove those elements from your life if you want to clean house and feel peace of mind. There are people in our lives who support us and feel a sense of vicarious pride in our achievements. They nurture us, build us, and do their best to share our burdens. I choose to focus on those aspects of my life and say goodbye to the voices that always bring me down. Though I haven't met many Randys in my life, I am able to see the few that I have set me back in egregiously destructive ways. The next time a voice in your life tells you how worthless you are for whatever reason, kindly snuff it out and focus on where you intend to be. Don't give too much life to it or it will reverberate in your head every time you must make a clear decision. Even if all those things really are wrong with you, they can be fixed. Odds are you are just fine, but fix it all anyway to the point where that voice has no fuel and grows quiet as it sinks into the deep dark mist of the past. Disconnect yourself from such toxicity. You'll feel lighter in your spirit, and then you can spend time with the people who really do care.
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