Friendship breakups: How not to lose your mind

By popular demand, I am addressing friendship breakups and why they suck more than any other part of life. To be transparent, whenever I have had a friendship deteriorate, I have indeed LOST MY MIND. But I think now I have learnt a few things that helped me get on with it and move past it.

Unlike relationship breakups, where you can find hundreds of books, songs, films and other support to numb yourself…friendship breakups make you feel like a lost soul. If you break up with a boyfriend, you can count on support and love from your besties to get you through it and rebuild. However, when you lose the person you would have gone to for that forever support, you really feel such a visible hole in your everyday life. 

As someone who is always single and prioritises my friends before anything else, I really feel weird if something is wrong in one of those friendships. I can’t focus on everyday tasks because I instantly presume I have done something wrong, that I am a terrible person and I need to get to the root of the issue. Maybe for people who don’t suffer from anxiety, you can just brush it off and move on, but for me I literally feel like an emotional tsunami is hitting my nervous system. 

It is important to note, that like romantic relationships, things often end. I always think friendships are designed to be forever, but people change a lot over time and it is completely natural to drift apart. With most friendships, you can go months without talking and suddenly pick back up like you haven't been apart. In romantic relationships, you often think about the timeline/future or when you may break up… but when friendships end you feel unprepared???

Grieving a friendship feels unnecessary, unnatural and fucking weird lets be honest. But at the end of the day, you will get past it. Like all other times in life when you feel like you will never get over something, you always do. 

Growing apart from someone is the easiest type of friendship breakup. We are busy people and it is hard to naturally slot into everyone's schedules as you get older. Sometimes there is no hate or ill will, you literally just don't have as much in common anymore and this kind of drifting usually feels natural and pretty doable. You are bound to miss elements of them, but you probably have those similar elements in new friendships and that helps. 

A harder pill to swallow: being let down. When someone you trust with your life, really pisses on your strawberries, it hurts a lot. They know how doing that would make you feel, they know the way you operate and what you care about, more than anyone else???

I have learnt over the years that most people don’t care as much about certain things as I do, and that is so fine. I am a really overly sensitive flower and genuinely feel my loved ones pain when they are sad about something. It takes over my own thoughts, and I tend to make it my issue and worry about their problems too.

Not everyone is like that though, so when I don't get the same support I give out, I feel a bit forgotten.  My mum always says that it is unfair to get upset when I don't get the same energy I give out, as I often give out more of myself than a normal human and I can’t expect that from everyone. 

Lowering unfair expectations of my friends is important as even the bestest friends will make mistakes and fuck up sometimes. I have defo fucked up in situations before, so you have to allow everyone else those few fuck ups too.

What I found really useful was evaluating what people bring to my life and assess if it is worth fighting for. Sometimes I romatintise a friendship in my head to be a lot stronger than it is and upon reflection it was very one sided. Was I always the one reaching out and making an effort? Did they check up on me when I was in a bad place? Would I be able to call them when I needed a pep talk? 

PSA: make sure you speak to them once you have cooled down. A big mistake is discussing a long term friendship in the heat of the moment, where you could say something you will inevitably regret and not be able to take back. Sleep on it sis and evaluate EVERYTHING before you start with the “you did this” back and forth. 

HOWEVER…. Jealousy is a weird part of friendship which I don't really understand. I have never really felt jealous of a friend as I am always genuinely happy for their success, but I think it is a massive red flag when your friend puts a dampner on your joy. If they have anything negative to say about something great happening to you, something isn't right there. Jealousy should not regularly exist in friendships end of! 

As much as losing a friend feels alien, sometimes their void isn’t as big as you think it would be. It also allows you to appreciate your other friends more and put time into those who need more love.

By all means, fight your socks off for those special friendships, but put it into perspective and evaluate the pro’s and cons. At the end of the day, it is their loss and you deserve to have homies who will have your back no matter what xxx