If you feel anxious about your friends and often wonder whether they like you it could be a sign of friendship anxiety. Friendship anxiety is not a medical term but is being increasingly used to describe feeling insecure about your good friends. If this feels like you, then its easy to think you are the only one which makes it feel worse. But in fact, friendship anxiety is more common than you think and there are many good reasons why people experience it. This blog will explore the causes but also look at signs and ways to overcome it.
What is friendship anxiety: Common Signs
Friendship anxiety may be confused with social anxiety or being shy but it is different. Social anxiety describes feeling very anxious in social situations such as parties etc. And being shy can get in the way of making friends in the first place. However, people with friendship anxiety can often be confident socially and have no problem making friends. But start to feel more anxious the closer they get, even with friends they’ve had for years. Common signs include:
- Wondering if your friends really like you
- Thinking they are mad at you if you’ve not heard from them
- Feeling jealous about their other friends
- Feeling let down and thinking they do not care easily
- Feeling like you cannot say no or you will lose them
- Comparing yourself to others and thinking you should have more friends
You can read more detail about the signs of friendship anxiety here.
What causes friendship anxiety
There are lots of different factors that cause friendship anxiety including childhood experiences and evolution!
Evolution and our tricky brains
We may think we are modern humans but most of how we think, feel and behave is shaped by our survival needs from pre-historic times. What makes this tricky is that our brains are wired for connection but also protection. This is because from a survival point of view we need a tribe of other people to be safe because it meant shelter and access to resources. It therefore makes sense why we crave friendships and long for connection. But if our tribe rejected us we would be left perish at the hands (or claws!) of predators. So our brains are also on the look out for signs we may be rejected which means second guessing people’s opinions and assuming the worst.
So we are all prone to need the approval to feel safe, but depending on our early childhood experiences we might be on higher alert for rejection than others. This is because our brains are designed to look out for, and protect us against, situations that are similar to when we haven’t felt safe in the past.
Early childhood and our attachment systems
Feeling anxious about friends can often be a sign of having an insecure attachment style. Our attachment style describes how secure we feel in relation to others and is shaped by early experiences, usually our parents. If we have been unfortunate to experience emotionally neglectful, abusive or criticial parents we may not feel safe and secure with others as adults. For example, often fearing we will be abandoned or rejected if we don’t act a certain way because this is how we felt as children. Since our brains are wired to protect us against similar experiences, we will jump to conclusions rather than weigh up evidence or get perspective.
Later childhood experiences
Sometimes we can experience a good homelife with attentive, loving parent but have a hard time at school. Finding it hard to fit in, being bullied or moving schools may all impact on our confidence around others. Our tricky brain is likely to remember this and put you on high alert for it happening again. Making it feel hard to feel accepted and safe with friends.
Low self esteem and self worth
If we’ve had stressful childhood experiences it can effect self esteem. This could mean having a low opinion of ourselves i.e.feel unloveable, not good enough or be very self criticial. Such deeper beliefs feed into our thoughts so we assume people will reject us because deep down we don’t feel loveable enough anyway. You can read more about self esteem here.
Social media
Even the most secure person can be affected by images they see on social media. But if you struggle with anxiety then scrolling your phone can make it worse. We may see images of our friends out with others or pictures of gang of friends that we may feel we lack. The constant feed of information about what everyone else is doing makes us compare ourselves to others and exacerbates friendship anxiety.
How to overcome friendship anxiety
Although there are many good reasons why we experience friendship anxiety, it does not mean it cannot be overcome. There are lots of therapetic tools which help to change the thoughts and feelings you have in response to friendships so that you can start to feel more secure. Below is a list of the most effective ones but you can read more about how to overcome friendship anxiety here.
Stop Overthinking Friendships: FREE guide
About me: My name is Rebecca Stambridge and I am a Compassion Focussed Therapist and mindfulness teacher specialising in low esteem, stress and anxiety. I run courses both online and face to face as well as a 1-1 private therapy practice. Use this form to let me know you’re interested in working with me.
