Its common to think that everyone finds friendships easy and there is something wrong with you if you don”t. However, struggling with friends can be a sign of friendship anxiety which is affects a lot of people. This blog will explain the signs of friendship anxiety, common causes and how to manage it.
What is friendship anxiety
Friendship Anxiety means not feeling secure in your platonic relationships which will effect how you think and behave. It can negatively impact on the quality of your friendships and your mental health.
The term is normally used to describe patterns of relating to existing friends, so even if you have known someone for a long time, you may still fear being rejected or abandoned by them.
Unlike social anxiety, which is means a fear of being judged by strangers in social situations, friendship anxiety is not a medical term so you won’t get diagnosed with it at the doctors. In fact, you can be a confident person and make friends easily, but feel anxious once the friendship has been established.
These situations can cause symptoms of anxiety such as tension in the body, worrying excessively and problems sleeping.
Common signs of friendships anxiety
- Feeling like you cannot say no to a friend for fear of losing them
- Not feeling you can be yourself around friends so you behave how you think they want you to
- Often worrying whether your friends are mad at you, particularly if they don’t reply to messages
- Getting upset if your friends cancel because you think it means they don’t care.
- Finding it hard to sleep or concentrate because of overthinking friendships so much
- Withdrawing from friends because you feel upset or assume they do not like you.
- Thinking there is something wrong with if you are not in a group of friends
What causes friendship anxiety.
Childhood experiences and low self esteem
Feeling insecure about friends is often a sign of low self esteem which means not feeling good about yourself. Low self esteem tends to be caused by childhood experiences, particularly our relationship with parents (or other carers). So if your parents were critical, emotionally unavailable or even abusive you may grow up not feeling good enough. You are more likely to jump to conclusions about what other people think and need a lot of validation to feel secure. You can read more about self esteem here.
It is also possible to experience friendship anxiety due to other life experiences such as being bullied at school, struggling to fit in or having a difficult relationship with your siblings.
Attachment Styles
Our attachment style reflects how secure we feel in close relationships and is usually determined by our parents. Since children need their parents to survive, they will automatically adapt their behaviour to be safe and loved. If parents were unpredictable, criticial or rejecting then a person will grow up feeling they cannot rely on others to love them unconditionally. This usually makes a person hyper sensitive to the behaviour of loved one and an underlying fear of abandonment which impacts on thoughts and behaviour.
Attachment styles are often connected to romantic relationships but are also relevant to understand how we react in friendships. You can read more about how attachment styles affect friendship here.
Evolved biological tendancy in all humans
In prehistoric times, we needed other people to survive because if we were rejected from our tribe we might not access food and shelter. Therefore we have evolved with a part of the brain thats very concerned with what other people think and a desire to be accepted by groups. This old part of the brain is very strong and will jump to conclusions in order to protect us and make us feel anxious so that we will act. This is also known as the fight and flight system which can be easily triggered by friends. Although all humans experience this, this part of the brain is more active in people who experience friendship anxiety.
Neurodiversity
There is increasing evidence that being neurodiverse can make friendships much more difficult to navigate. For example, it can cause a person to be more sensitive to rejection, struggle to regulate emotions and also find it harder to read social cues. All these feed into anxiety about friendships and makes them stressful. Being aware of this can help you be more accepting and learn to manage it with the right tools.
How to manage friendship anxiety
The good news is that there are plenty of proven tools you can implement straight away to reduce friendship anxiety and start feeling more secure with your friends. Below are a list of the most effective, evidence based tools.
Recognise what is happening with kindness
Next time you’re feeling anxious about your friends, try to bring a kindly attention to what is happening which will help you take a step back from it rather than getting caught up in it. Say to yourself “I am noticing I am feeling anxious about friends and cannot help it”. Instead of judging yourself and wishing you didn’t do it, acknowledge you cannot help it because its your brain trying to protect you or part of your neurodiversity.
Challenge your assumptions
If you feel anxious around friends you are more likely to jump to conclusions about what people think of you which in turn makes you feel more anxious. Using principles from CBT, we can identify the thoughts that effect how we feel and try to challange them.
For example, if you think your friend is mad at you because she hasn’t replied to that text, remind yourself that you could be “mind reading” and she could be busy. Or if you assume someone has cancelled because they do not care, weight up whether there is evidence to suggest they do care rather than focussing on one event.
Practice mindfulness
What is going on in our minds affects how we feel but they are just thoughts. Trying to push them away can often backfire and mindfulness helps us to increase our awareness that “A thought it just a thought”. Practicing regularly can also help to stop thoughts from spiralling so that they have less affect on how you feel.
When a friend triggers anxiety, try focussing some of your attention on other things in the present moment, such as your feet, sounds around you or what you eat and drink. This helps to give space to thoughts. Regular meditation can also help increase your mindfulness skills. Mindfulness can also help us to tune into and accept the feelings of anxiety in the body which helps to manage it.
Learn to sooth yourself and reduce anxiety
When you’re anxious about friends, the fight and flight system is activated i.e the body’s way of alerting us to danger. You may then breath more quickly and your heart rate quickens which further increases anxiety and overthinking. Being able to sooth yourself and label your emotions will help to reduce anxiety and calm your mind.
Increase self esteem.
Learn and accept your friendship style
Its very common to compare yourself to others and think that everyone has the perfect gang of friends. In fact thats only one style of friendship and many people prefer the intimacy of one to one companionship. Forcing yourself to make lots of friends, with people who don’t necessarily click with, because you think you should, is more likely to feel overwhelming and activate your friendship anxiety. Connection is important, but if you suspect you might have an introverted side, try to honour it. Let go of the need for a busy social life and foster fewer friends you can cultivate trust and safety with.
Learn Self Compassion
There is increasing evidence that self compassion reduces anxiety and improves self esteem by helping you to develop a kinder relationship with yourself. Self Compassion incorporates a lot of the above tools and involves learning meditations, visualisations and other practices. You can practice self compassion meditations yourself or work with a therapist/teacher.
Summary
Friendship anxiety if not a medical term but affects a lot of people. It means being insecure about friendships so you worry excessively and adapt your behaviour. Its caused by childhood experiences, low self esteem, our biological tendancies and neurodiversity. Friendship anxiety can be effectively managed by challenging assumptions, using mindfulness and building self esteem.
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