Recognising and overcoming toxic friendships

Friendships are meant to feel supportive, comforting, and safe. They’re often the relationships we turn to when life feels difficult, stressful, or uncertain. But sometimes, a friendship that once felt close and meaningful starts leaving you emotionally exhausted instead.

You may notice yourself feeling anxious before replying to their messages, relieved when plans get cancelled, or emotionally flat after spending time together. Conversations might leave you second-guessing yourself, carrying guilt that doesn’t feel entirely fair, or feeling responsible for keeping the peace.

Toxic friendships don’t always begin with obvious conflict. In many cases, unhealthy patterns build gradually over time. Small comments, ongoing criticism, emotional pressure, or passive-aggressive behaviours can slowly change the way the friendship feels.

Because of the history and emotional connection involved, it can take a long time to recognise when a friendship is affecting your wellbeing more than supporting it.

Understanding the signs of a toxic friendship can help you protect your mental health, strengthen your boundaries, and make clearer decisions about the relationships in your life.

What is a toxic friendship?

A toxic friendship is a relationship that consistently leaves you feeling emotionally unsupported, criticised, manipulated, or drained. Unlike healthy friendships, which allow room for trust, honesty, and mutual respect, toxic friendships often revolve around imbalance and emotional tension.

Sometimes the signs are obvious. A friend may openly criticise you, ignore your boundaries, or create constant conflict. In other situations, the behaviour is more subtle. Sarcastic comments, guilt-tripping, emotional manipulation, or passive-aggressive behaviours can slowly wear down your confidence and emotional energy over time.

Not every difficult friendship is toxic. All friendships go through periods of stress, conflict, or misunderstanding. The concern usually comes when unhealthy patterns become ongoing and leave you feeling consistently anxious, emotionally exhausted, or unsafe within the relationship.

Signs of a toxic friendship

Toxic friendships don’t always look dramatic from the outside. Sometimes, the biggest warning signs are the way you feel after interacting with someone.

You feel emotionally drained after spending time together

One of the clearest relationship red flags is consistently feeling exhausted after seeing or speaking with a friend. You might notice that:

• you replay conversations in your head afterwards,

• you feel tense before meeting up,

• you spend a lot of time managing their emotions, or

• you feel relieved when you get time away from them.

Healthy friendships can still involve difficult conversations and emotional support, but they shouldn’t leave you feeling constantly depleted.

Criticism becomes part of the friendship

There’s a big difference between honest feedback and ongoing criticism. Toxic friendships often involve comments that feel dismissive, belittling, or unnecessarily harsh.

Sometimes this criticism is disguised as humour or “just being honest”. Over time, repeated comments about your appearance, choices, personality, or achievements can affect your self-esteem more than you initially realise.

You may even start questioning yourself more often or feeling hesitant to share things that matter to you.

Passive-aggressive behaviours create tension

Passive-aggressive behaviours can make friendships feel emotionally confusing. Instead of communicating openly, a person may express frustration through sarcasm, indirect comments, silent treatment, or subtle attempts to make you feel guilty.

You may find yourself trying to decode what they actually mean or feeling responsible for tension that was never clearly addressed in the first place. This kind of communication can create anxiety and emotional instability within the friendship.

The friendship feels one-sided

Friendships naturally shift at times, especially during stressful periods. But if you constantly feel like the emotional support system in the relationship, imbalance can quickly become exhausting.

You might be the person who always checks in first, listens for hours to their problems, organises plans, apologises to keep the peace, or provides emotional support that’s rarely returned.

Some people eventually realise they feel more like a caretaker than an equal friend.

Your boundaries aren’t respected

Healthy friendships involve respect for emotional, social, and personal boundaries. Toxic friendships often involve pressure, guilt, or frustration when you try to express your limits.A friend may expect constant access to your time, dismiss your discomfort, or react negatively when you say no. Even small boundary violations can become emotionally draining when they happen repeatedly.

Setting healthy boundaries is an important part of maintaining emotionally sustainable relationships.

There’s constant drama or conflict

Some friendships seem permanently surrounded by tension. Arguments, gossip, emotional outbursts, shifting loyalties within friendship groups, or recurring conflict can create a sense of instability that becomes difficult to manage.

Being around constant emotional chaos can affect your stress levels more than you might expect, particularly if you feel pulled into situations that never fully resolve.

How toxic friendships affect mental health

Friendships play a major role in emotional wellbeing. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, strong social connections are closely linked to better mental health outcomes.

When a friendship becomes unhealthy, the emotional impact can be significant.

Anxiety and emotional hypervigilance

Toxic friendships can leave you feeling emotionally on edge. You may overthink messages before sending them, worry about upsetting the other person, or constantly anticipate criticism or conflict.

This kind of emotional hypervigilance can increase stress and contribute to anxiety over time.

Lower self-esteem

Repeated criticism, manipulation, or emotional invalidation can gradually affect the way you see yourself. You may begin doubting your reactions, minimising your own feelings, or assuming you’re always the problem.

These patterns can slowly chip away at a person's confidence and self-worth.

Emotional exhaustion

Friendships that revolve around constant emotional labour can become incredibly draining. If you’re always expected to provide support, absorb emotional tension, or manage someone else’s problems, burnout often follows.

Loneliness and isolation

Toxic friendships can also create loneliness. Some people stay in unhealthy friendships because they fear losing connection or being alone. Others start withdrawing socially after repeated difficult experiences within friendships.

Why toxic friendships are hard to leave

Leaving a toxic friendship is rarely simple, especially when there’s a long history involved.

You may still care deeply about the person, even while recognising the relationship has become unhealthy. Shared memories, loyalty, mutual friends, and emotional attachment can all make it harder to step away.

Many people also hold onto hope that things will improve if they communicate more carefully, try harder, or continue offering support. That emotional conflict can make it difficult to trust your own instincts about what the friendship is costing you emotionally.

There’s often grief involved, too. Ending a friendship can feel like losing an important part of your life and identity, particularly if the relationship once felt supportive and meaningful.

Setting healthy boundaries in friendships

Setting healthy boundaries helps protect your emotional wellbeing and creates clearer expectations within relationships.

The first step is noticing which interactions leave you feeling anxious, uncomfortable, resentful, or emotionally exhausted. Once you identify those patterns, it becomes easier to communicate what you need more clearly. That might sound like:

• “I can’t take this on right now.”

• “I need some space this week.”

• “That comment upset me.”

• “I’m not comfortable with that.”

A healthy friendship won’t always respond perfectly, but there’s usually openness to listening and reflecting. In toxic friendships, boundaries are more likely to be met with defensiveness, guilt-tripping, passive-aggressive behaviours, or attempts to make you feel responsible for their reaction.

Can toxic friendships improve?

Some friendships can improve when both people are willing to acknowledge unhealthy patterns and make meaningful changes.

That usually requires honest communication, accountability, emotional maturity, and consistent respect for boundaries. Real change tends to show up through behaviour over time, not just apologies in difficult moments.

At the same time, not every friendship can or should be repaired. If the same harmful patterns continue despite repeated conversations, creating distance may be the healthier option for your mental wellbeing.

Knowing when it’s time to step away

There are times when ending a friendship becomes necessary for your emotional health.

You may find yourself considering distance when:

• your mental health consistently worsens around the person,

• you feel emotionally unsafe,

• your boundaries continue being ignored,

• conflict never fully resolves, or

• the friendship feels persistently one-sided.

Making that decision can feel painful, especially if you still care about the person. But staying in a relationship that continually harms your wellbeing can also carry long-term emotional consequences.

Final thoughts

Friendships have a powerful influence on emotional wellbeing. Healthy relationships usually leave you feeling supported, respected, and emotionally safe. Toxic friendships often create the opposite experience, leaving you drained, criticised, anxious, or emotionally responsible for someone else’s behaviour.

Recognising relationship red flags such as passive-aggressive behaviours, manipulation, emotional imbalance, and repeated boundary violations can help you better understand which relationships are supporting your wellbeing and which ones are causing harm.

Setting healthy boundaries won’t automatically change every friendship, but it can help you create healthier dynamics and clearer expectations within your relationships.

If toxic friendships are affecting your confidence, stress levels, or mental health, speaking with a therapist may help you process those experiences and strengthen the way you navigate relationships in the future.