Your friends are typically the first people you look for at school in the morning and some of the last people you text at night. You wear each other’s clothes and finish each other’s sentences. After some time, you slowly begin to notice that you feel drained and majorly depressed after hanging out with certain people. Questions start to formulate in your head about whether or not it is because they like making you feel awful or they do not like you anymore?

Friendships come in many different forms, but what should be present in them is trust, respectfulness, loyalty, and communication. If your friendship is missing those things then it might be harmful to you or the other person. UACHS Junior, Jeremiah Siland has been in a toxic friendship and will define it. 

“A toxic friendship isn’t healthy,” said Siland. “It is more of a control/ownership type of relationship.” 

Such situations could be detrimental to your mental, physical, and emotional health. According to jeanhailes.com, “toxic friendships can cause you to have low self-esteem, high blood pressure, depression, and minor insomnia.” Avoiding them is the best possible way to stop from suffering these effects, however, because at times we are delusional about the toxicity of our friends here is a list of ways you can tell you are in a toxic friendship: 

Put you down 

Sometimes friends joke and say innocent comments but other times it is harmful. This does not necessarily mean that you have a toxic friendship if you laugh at it. 

When this friend continuously makes fun of you or makes you feel insecure you should start to distance yourself from them.  

 Put themselves front and center all of the time 

Ever had a friend who was capricious? When things are going well or when they have a need, they drop by, but when you’re having trouble, you can not get in touch with them at all.

Some friends can talk about their current issues for an hour. They use that small meaningless question “And how are you?” when they’ve finished venting before quickly making the conversation about themselves. 

 They try to change you  

 According to Healthline. com, “someone who tries to change you is not a friend because a friend is supposed to love you no matter what.” A true friend understands your personality but once that person tries to change the way you feel, dress, and act. 

They use your bad experiences against you

Sometimes it is good that your friends remember things. When you trust that person to the point that you become vulnerable and you find them repeating your trauma and bad experiences. Something that should not be constantly brought up. When this person does it is about time to leave the friendship.

Remember to put yourself first. If your so-called friends are not making you feel good then maybe they are not worth your time. Stick to the friendships that make you happy. Forget about the ones that feel stressful.