Surviving Unhealthy Friendships in College

College can be a difficult time for friendships. Making new friends in a foreign environment during the first week of freshman year, leaving high school friends behind, dealing with constant changes and huge life events, and trying to stick together when everything about and around you is changing. Sometimes, it can be hard to know when you’re in an unhealthy friendship, and we want to help you see the signs. Read some of our stories to see some of the warning signs, situations, and resolutions you may see in your friendships that feel unhealthy or toxic. 

Convenient Friendships

When I was in grade school, I was essentially handed my friends. I went to a small private Catholic school, and I graduated the 8th grade with only 20 other students. We were all close-knit and happy. For high school, I left my comfortable little friendship bubble to go a large all-girl Catholic school downtown. I only knew two people in the entire school, and although I didn’t make friends overnight I still had all my family and friends from grade school to support me throughout the process. In college, however, I was not afforded that safety net.

During orientation week, campus is a mad house. It’s a mad dash competition to find friends and find your niche at school. Students attach themselves to the closest available person, completely disregarding whether or not they have anything in common with them. Eventually, a few months—or years!—go on and you may realize that these friendships are based purely on convenience.

Maybe you feel that you want to expand your friendship circle, or perhaps you’re experiencing difficulties in your current friendship group. Regardless, if you feel like you’re constantly at odds with your friends it may be time to reevaluate your friendships. Friendships, especially in college, should be a source of mutual support and love. Not drama.

Feeling Stuck in Friendships

Having an opportunity to start over and make new friends was the most important and exciting thing I was looking forward to as I started college. I had high hopes for this new chapter of my life and when it finally started, it was amazing. After the first year, I had my set group of friends, and it seemed like everyone else I saw on campus did too. My friends became my roommates and it seemed perfect!…Until I found myself feeling stuck every day. The things I would say kept getting overlooked with what seemed like more important conversations. When I chose not to speak to avoid being interrupted, I was called out for being too quiet. I didn’t feel welcome in my own living space, and I knew something needed to change. I couldn’t leave the situation immediately, but I started spending my time around campus and meeting as many new people as I could.

Some friendships are only meant to last a little while, and we can be thankful for them because all relationships teach us something about ourselves. However, everyone deserves to feel welcome and important; I encourage anyone in a similar situation to find someone who appreciates you and don’t settle for friends who give you any less than you deserve.

When High School Friends Change

You know the phrase that goes something like, “You go to high school to find your bridesmaids, not your husband”? I’m basically in that situation, except I didn’t meet my potential future bridesmaids in high school. I’ve been best friends with these five other girls since grade school. Not only have I watched them mature, I’ve been with them for all of their major life moments. Now, in college, I constantly find myself second-guessing my relationship with them. They drink excessively, some of them smoke, they party way too hard, they brag about the guys they’ve hooked up with, and they tend to keep all of this a secret from me. Their excuse for keeping secrets is, “I thought it would ruin our friendship.” That should have been the last red flag, but I can’t fathom letting go of these friendships.

Why should I surround myself with these girls who don’t even know how to handle our friendship? We’ve had the same lifestyle since we were five years old. We told each other everything, and we helped each other with our life dilemmas. When we had our first sleepover as college freshmen, I cried. They were bragging about things beyond our maturity level, which didn’t make any sense to me. These are the girls who used to brag about how many religious retreats they went on in a month, not how many guys felt them up at their versions of City & East. What happened to them? College. That’s what. When I came to Carroll, I made a cornucopia of new friends. My Carroll friends make me realize that not everyone goes crazy their freshman year of college. If my new friends could respect my morals, values, and interests, why couldn’t my old friends? For the last three years, I’ve constantly struggled trying to adapt to their new lifestyle, but I just don’t agree with it or find it entertaining. Should I break the bond of my longest friendship? After all, we are going to be there for each other on the biggest day of our lives…aren’t we? 

Dealing With Toxic Friends

I started off my time at college as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as anyone else, eager to be shed my high school skin and become the effortlessly cool, smart, and sexy collegiate women I knew was inside of me, waiting to burst forth and, well, do something noteworthy. Cure HIV or stop world hunger; I didn’t have all the details figured out. What matters is that I was ready for a new start.

I made friends like one orders at Taco Bell late at night; largely indiscriminately and haphazardly, but with a certain finesse. I needed effortlessly cool, smart, and sexy collegiate friends to complete the image of my transformed self. I met one girl after one of my classes and we hit it off immediately; we had everything anyone has ever considered in common and we were going to be best friends forever. She fit right into the cool/smart/sexy set I was going for.

And it was great for a while. We were the best of friends. Then things started to get really awkward between us. To this day I don’t know what happened. Life happened, I guess. I joined clubs and quit clubs and learned what my passions where; she didn’t. I made new friends; she didn’t. I traveled and explored and changed, and she didn’t. I grew up, and she stayed the same. It wasn’t a bad thing that she didn’t have the same experience as me, but she was still trying to be friends with the old me; a girl who no longer existed.

We fought about the stupidest things. She would talk about me to anyone that would listen but then be nice to me when I was there. She would mimic things I did and then mock it behind my back. She was manipulative and malicious, but I couldn’t find a way away from her. No matter how many conversations I had with her about it, no matter how many times I tried to break it off, or tried ignoring her, she was too entangled in my life.         .

I don’t have a great, triumphant moment of redemption when I was finally able to make things right with her. Things are still awkward, and I still have several awkwardly forced conversations with her every week. But the thing is: I don’t care what she says anymore. I don’t care if she’s mean, I don’t care if she starts rumors about me. Her opinion doesn’t matter to me. I was spending so much energy getting upset over what she was saying and trying to avoid her, when I should have just stop focusing on thing that I couldn’t change and ultimately didn’t matter. Now I spend my time mostly hanging out with my real friends and only talk to her when I have too, which, although it’s not perfect, it works for me. 

Fake Freshman Year Friends

I personally dealt with an experience with a friend group, in which I decided to leave the friend group. It was the first semester of my freshman year, and when you meet people the first week of school, you usually stick with them. In my case, my friend group was not very healthy. I was living with one of the girls in our group, and our habits were different. I decided to switch dorms second semester, and my ex-roommate was very angry. Starting a week or so later, a few things in the group were off. I could feel myself being excluded. People would talk about something that they sent into the group chat at dinner, and I wouldn’t get those messages. I realized that there was another chat made without me. A friend in that group told me that my ex-roommate had started to say nasty things about me and that they were purposefully trying to exclude me.

I was stressed all the time, crying daily, and extremely depressed because I was not happy at John Carroll. I am not from Ohio, so I would get very homesick. I thought I wanted to transfer. I started going to the Counseling Center, and it is a very good resource here at JCU. The staff is very professional and are willing to listen to any problem you have. I personally started to see little things that made me realize that I was not exposed to healthy friendships, with the exception of the friend who told me the truth about what was going on. I left the friend group, because I was not happy. I saw these warning signs that made me realize being with people who I was constantly upset being around were not the people I wanted to be friends with for the rest of my four years, and even my life. I started becoming friends with people in the activities that I am involved in on campus, and it honestly helped me for the better. My realization took me a little while. Friendships can be toxic and when you realize that you’re constantly unhappy, then I suggest that you should try and find people that would be better because in the end you want to be happy.

Cutting Off Childhood Friends

When someone asks me about the picture perfect friendship, I like to think back to my childhood friends. We were the fantastic four, us against the world. However, one of my friends began to act out and get herself in to trouble. For a while, it was fun. We would bail her out or take the fall together because that was what friends were supposed to do….right? Well, it continued to get worse. She was constantly blowing us off for terrible relationships, pulling us down with her mistakes, and causing fights. I only remained her friend for the sake of the group. I was afraid I would be left behind if I spoke up. She continued to spread nasty rumors, make stabs at my body, and criticize my relationships. Slowly, my self-confidence went away, and I began to have serious body issues. When I look back to the pictures of us all smiling, I realize how staged some of those photos were. Don’t get me wrong, we had great moments. Sleepovers, trying on dresses at the mall, and band trips. However, her attacks always sat in the back of my mind. Friends don’t make friends feel bad about their weight, relationships, or struggles.

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