A majority of people in the U.S. would consider their current friendships to be one of the cornerstones in their life, and rightfully so. The friends that we surround ourselves with shape everything from our life experiences to our behaviors, beliefs, and values. Meaningful and healthy friendships can improve our physical, emotional, and mental health, while unsupportive friendships can negatively impact those same aspects. Today, we will be looking at the role that friendship plays specifically in our mental health, both unhealthy and healthy.
Why is Friendship So Important?
How Friendships Can Be Healthy For You
Healthy and supportive friendships with others are important for many reasons, mainly because friendships add enjoyment and support to our daily lives. It’s as simple as that. Friendships constantly enrich our daily lives, from giggling to ourselves after receiving a funny text message from a friend to saying hello and catching up with what happened over the weekend with our favorite coworker. Friendships add moments of happiness to our daily work, school, and family routines. Not only do friendships enrich our lives, but they enrich the lives of our friends as well. In regards to friends providing support, take a moment and think back to a time when you were struggling. Did a friend reach out to you to provide love and support? If not, do you think the love and support of a friend could have helped you get through that time? Did the love and support of a friend help you get through that time? The answer is most likely yes. This is because humans are naturally social creatures driven by an innate need for community and belonging. We feel our best when we feel that we are supported by those around us. When going through a particularly difficult time in life, the support of a trusted friend is sometimes just what we need to get through it. Not at all to downplay the healthy impact that family can have on us in these situations, but today, we are looking solely at friendships.
How Friendships Can Be Negative For You
All of that being said, friendships also can negatively impact us when they are unsupportive and hurtful. Most people have probably experienced having at least one friend in their life who did not positively impact them. This can look like criticizing and putting you down, speaking rudely to you, speaking badly behind your back, influencing you to make bad decisions, holding mistakes against you, being unsupportive of decisions you feel were best for you, etc. Friendships like this can negatively impact our self-image and cause us to feel isolated or alone. Bringing up again our innate need for community and a sense of belonging, when we don’t feel supported by those around us, our self-confidence and self-esteem usually take a significant blow. Friendships like this typically require some boundary setting or sometimes even walking away from the friendship altogether, which is rarely an easy task.
What is a Meaningful Friendship?
At this point, you may be asking yourself, “What does a good friendship look like?” There usually isn’t one correct answer to this question, and depending on your life phase, a healthy friendship can have many different forms.
Am I in a Healthy Friendship?
When questioning whether a friendship is a healthy one or not, you should consider the way you feel when you are around that person. Does the person generally put you in a good mood most of the time? Do you feel overall supported by this person? Do you feel like you could come to this person with a dilemma or experience, and they would not criticize you or make you feel bad? Do you feel like you can generally be yourself around this person and that you don’t have to hide or diminish qualities of yourself? Do you feel like this person would respect personal boundaries? Do you feel like this person generally wants good things to happen to you and is happy when you accomplish things? If you answered yes to these questions, that means you are likely to have a healthy friendship. If you answered no, maybe some thought needs to be put into this friendship to determine if it is good for you.
However, sometimes it is not this simple. Some friendships can be more difficult to determine whether or not they are positively impacting you. This could be a friendship that started as a great one but, over time, has turned into an unsupportive one that no longer positively serves you. These can be challenging to navigate and may take some practice to identify. I recommend discussing these specific situations with a counselor or other trusted individual in your life. Sometimes, an outside viewpoint can greatly help put things into perspective for us.
Making and Maintaining Friendships Can Be Difficult
Unfortunately, many people do not have several or possibly even any healthy friendships in their lives. This could be hurting the person’s quality of life, and they may feel that they want to start building meaningful friendships with others.
How Do I Make Healthy Friendships?
People can build friendships at any point in their lives, and it is never too late, though it may take some stepping outside of your comfort zone. Hobbies are a great vehicle for building friendships. Say you enjoy running or even painting. Something as simple as finding a local gym to run at or joining a painting class at the community center can be a great start. Friendships can blossom from mutual interests, and you never know; someone else running at the gym or someone in that painting class may be looking to make a friend, too. If this causes too much anxiety for you, you can always start smaller. Meeting people online is also a great way to make friends, as long as you are being safe. Groups such as online book clubs and support groups can be possible avenues to explore that cause less anxiety. I even recently heard about an app called Meetup that is similar to a dating app but is instead used to find other people in your area looking for friends. Know that you are not alone in your search for friends. There are always other people out there looking for friends as well.
How Do I Maintain Healthy Friendships?
Another aspect of friendships that people often struggle with is maintaining friendships. Not all friendships are meant to last over multiple years, but there are things you can do to attempt to maintain a friendship over some time. These would include setting aside time to see your friends, making efforts to reach out to them, and working on being fully present when you are spending time with them. It is important here to emphasize, again, that not all friendships are going to last for multiple years, and that is okay. You want to make sure that you are not putting large amounts of time and effort into a friendship that the other person has no intention of reciprocating. One-sided friendships can feel lonely and isolating. Also, a friendship can be supportive and helpful during a specific period in your life, and without any type of falling-out or conflict, the two of you end up going separate ways in life. This is completely natural. We age, and we change throughout our lives, and we might bond better with some people during specific periods of our lives. This is to be expected in life.
Overall, friendships enrich our daily routines and can vastly improve our quality of life. On the other end, unsupportive friendships can negatively impact our mental health. Therapy is a great place to explore the concept of friendship and what qualities you look for in a supportive friend. If you would like to schedule an appointment with me or any of our other wonderful therapists at Heartland Therapy Connection, reach out to us at (816) 287-0252 or visit our website to request an appointment.
