Eating Your Way Through Unhealthy Friendships
July 17, 2013Our obese bodies are a symbol of many things...more than anything it's a sign we wear around our waist saying this how we deal with stress, anxiety and depression... 20lbs to cope with not being able to find a job, +30lbs because you don't know how to deal with your parents, +50lbs to deal with childhood trauma, +30lbs because you're in an unhappy marriage, 15lbs because you hate your job, 40lbs because you have financial problems....food was never our enemy, it was the one constant thing we could count on. But because so many people refuse, or simply cannot for whatever reason, face these issues, they continue to blame food.
Eating Due to Unhealthy Friendships
Aren't friendships supposed to bring us joy? Be fulfilling? Well, what happens when your friends aren't what they're cracked up to be. At what point do we make the decision to part ways with people we call “friends”? It's important to understand the impact that unhealthy friendships have on our overall health and wellbeing. An unhealthy friendship can cause anxiety, affect our social life, trigger stress, impact self-worth and influence our personality. These symptoms of an unhealthy relationship force our coping skills into overdrive. So unless you go out for a jog every time your girlfriend judges your parenting style, for example, then you’re setting yourself up for disaster by hanging on to these relationships.
So why do we continue to put ourselves through the misery of bad company? Some people justify these relationships by clinging on to history they built together. Others hang in there because they have mutual friends in common, and fear that if they cut one friendship off they risk losing the others. Some people would rather put up with dysfunctional relationships then end up alone. Self-esteem plays a significant role in the decisions we make, including the company we keep.
5 Signs that You Should Reevaluate Your Friendships
1. You keep asking yourself why you're still friends
2. You no longer enjoy their company
3. You don't like who you are when you're around that person
4. You feel like you give more than you get in return
5. They add little to no value to your to your life
So what kind of people we should allow in our lives. Most people think we need to have things in common with people in order to have them as friends. Not necessarily. If you purely enjoy their company then isn't that enough? What about having multiple friends, having multiple friends can add value to our lives; one friend may be the one you count on to lift you up when you are down, another may be the one you get life tips from. Either way, learn to value each friend for what they add to your life, instead of asking them to add value to other parts of your life to fill a void.
So don't wait until you have an argument with your friend to find the courage to tell them how you feel, address concerns before they ruin a friendship. And you don't need “something” to happen to call off a friendship. If you think you’re on a different page and or just not interested in investing in them, then tell them, instead of avoiding them and slowly or abruptly cutting them off. In order to live your best life, it takes courage. Doing what is right for you may not feel right or be easy, but it is ultimately about your health and happiness......so dig deep and make tough choices, you deserve to be around people who deserve to have you in their lives.
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 | ABOUT THE AUTHOR Diana Vogel, MS, MFT, Intern is a fourth year Doctorate student with an emphasis in Marriage and Family Therapy at the California School of Professional Psychology in Irvine California. In 2012, Diana added weight loss surgery as a subspecialty to her practice, as she had RNY gastric bypass on January 2011. She now brings her knowledge as a therapist, combined with her personal experience as a bariatric patient, to offer a unique service to the weight loss surgery community. Identifying complacency and promoting lifestyle changes drives this sub specialty. |
