When I was in middle school, I had a private (or so I thought) online blog that I used as a personal journal for myself. After experiencing a bout of early teen angst, the kind that makes you feel particularly alone, I decided to write a post on my blog in which I basically just bashed all of my friends. I wrote a paragraph about each friend, detailing the qualities I didn’t like, and ultimately questioned my friendships with each member of the group. Obviously, this was a bad idea. One of my friends found the blog post, forwarded it to the rest of the group, and suddenly I was experiencing a collective friend break-up with all of them. I cried and cried, feeling very much like my entire world was ending. How would I go to school the next day? Who would I sit with at lunch? Who would I spend time with on the weekends?
Not all friend breakups are this dramatic or have an obvious cause, but many friend breakups can feel like the world is ending — or at least changing, in a painful and confusing way. In fact, friend breakups feel a lot like romantic breakups. And that’s because, well, they really aren’t that different from one another.
Whether a friendship ends because of an emotional fight, a betrayal, natural growing apart, or a transition like switching schools, and whether or not you are the person who chooses to end the friendship, it hurts to lose someone who we trust and care about. So why aren’t friend breakups always taken as seriously as romantic breakups?
According to therapist Isaiah Bartlett, LCSW, “We live in this culture that is so obsessed with romantic relationships and really belittles the importance of friendship. But the reality is that the majority of the relationships we experience throughout our lives are actually non-romantic.”
The connections we make throughout our lives — especially close friendships — can still hold the same intensity, intimacy, and importance that we associate with romantic relationships. Depending on our family situation, or through particularly formative times in our lives, friendships can take on even more responsibility and initiate stronger attachment bonds than other relationships. So when those connections end, it hits us hard.
Those who are part of marginalized communities can have an especially difficult time processing and experiencing friend breakups, Bartlett notes. “For queer people or anybody who experiences marginalization, the possibilities for friendship and creating intentional communities can give birth to so many different types of relating,” he says. “Friend breakups can be more intense and intimate for these folks because of the work that went into creating those relationships in the first place, along with being in a marginalized position already.”
When I went through my big friend breakup in middle school, I remember feeling like my reaction was overly dramatic. As a closeted queer person, I was nervous that the emotional response I had to losing my friends (a group of cis girls) was abnormal. I didn’t want to express how sad and hurt I was because I was afraid people would judge my feelings as indication that I was gay. “There seems to be this idea,” Bartlett shares, “that if we fully experience the loss of a friend, that it must signify something more than a friendship…but that is part of the patriarchal construct we live in, in which everything is organized around heterosexual monogamy.” The truth is that we connect with others in a variety of different ways that greatly affect how we grow, understand ourselves, and relate to others, and which exist outside of heterosexual, romantic relationships, regardless of sexuality.
“There isn’t a dialogue around friend breakups, so there is shame that can be associated with the loss of friendship,” Bartlett continues. “People have this idea that a broken heart from a romance is what is supposed to be mourned, while a broken heart from a friendship isn’t. But this doesn’t make sense at all...and it means that people try to prematurely push themselves into feeling better when they are not yet ready to do so.”
Bartlett recommends the practice of “radical acceptance” for anyone experiencing a friend breakup. Radical acceptance means that we accept our realities without judgement. In the case of a friend breakup, it means accepting that the relationship is over but also acknowledging that it was an important and meaningful relationship, which deserves to be mourned.
If you are experiencing a friend breakup, allow yourself to feel whatever emotions come up, without judgement, for however long you need to, and understand that what you feel is valid and part of your own personal healing journey. Create boundaries for yourself when necessary (and respect those that others involved may make), and make sure to reach out for professional help if you feel like you need assistance processing your emotions. Above all, know that friend breakups are a normal part of growing up for everybody.
Related: Breaking Up With a Friend Is Hard to Do—But Here's How (and Why Sometimes It's Just Gotta Happen)
