What Are Friends For?

I should start by admitting that I, like so many people, am guilty of weaponizing therapy language, but have since recognized its harmful effects on my relationships. As someone who struggles with mental health, I am a huge advocate for seeking therapy and love that it is becoming more normalized, but with every good thing comes drawbacks. People seeking therapy, in this age of social media where the self becomes the center (“Main Character Energy”), often overuse and even misuse language heard in therapy.

Terms like “toxic”, “trauma-dumping”, and “narcissist” get thrown around without the person having a complete understanding of the definition. A friend asking you to help them move apartments isn’t “toxic”. A friend venting to you about a bad day at work isn’t “trauma-dumping”. A partner needing their space isn’t “narcissitic”. Of course if someone you’re close to is crossing a boundary then you should communicate and set the boundary, but they cannot read your mind and that does not make them a bad person.

In the fall of 2021 my father passed away. I didn’t want my friends to feel like it was their job to help me through the grieving process so I simply sent them a text saying that he had passed away and that I needed some time to disconnect.

A day or two later, I got a call from my friend at the time checking in on how I was doing and asking how he’d passed. I explained to her that the issue was with his lungs. She immediately cut me off to tell me that she couldn’t hear about it anymore because the subject was starting to trigger her.

I respect people’s triggers, but I felt silenced. I felt like I was being made to feel bad about overstepping a boundary that I wasn’t even told about. She’d asked me about my dad’s death and now she didn’t want to hear about it because of a personal fear she had.

This had been an ongoing issue I had with this friend. Our relationship was a communication see-saw. She told me I could always come to her when I needed someone to talk to. Then all of a sudden she couldn’t be there for me anymore and I needed to get a therapist because I was using her emotional labor. The last thing I want to do is negate someone's emotional capacity to deal with a hard situation a friend is going through, but for many of us, it's gotten to the point where we don't open up to anyone. Now any time I'm dealing with something difficult I find a crisis hotline because I don't want to be an emotional burden on anyone.

This isn’t to say that it’s okay to only talk to your friends when you want to be negative, but you also shouldn’t be made to feel like a terrible friend for asking your friend for advice on a tough situation or when you’re in a bind and need help. That’s what friends are for.

The trend of weaponizing therapy language has led to people treating their friends like coworkers. It seems like apathy is the newest trend. Being in a relationship with someone who has needs is suddenly too much. They tell their friends that they don't consent to hearing about their micromanaging supervisor or that said friend is a gaslighter for genuinely forgetting something and then justifying their behavior in the name of being “valid”. Validity is not synonymous with justified.

Relationships that are platonic, familial, or romantic, require emotional labor. A relationship that doesn’t require emotional labor is an acquitence. Relationships are about growing together, not abandoning someone you were close to as soon as they start exhibiting signs of a mental decline. If you want to nurture a friendship you might have to do some things that you’re not comfortable with like listening to your friend when she recounts the days leading up to her father’s death even if it’s upsetting to hear about. You might have to help your friend clean their room because the dirt, filth, and clutter got out of hand while they were in the midst of a depressive episode. As The Beatles said, “I get by with a little help from my friends.” And if your friends only want to be around on your fair weather days, they are not your friends.