Do you often worry your friends are mad at you? Feel jealous if you see them with other friends or worry you may get forgotten about unless you say yes to every social event? Are you always worried that you might lose them if you put a foot wrong? If you experience any of these then you could be suffering from friendship anxiety.
Friendship anxiety is not a well known term and you probably won’t get diagnosed with it at the doctors. As its often not talked about, its easy to think you’re the only one and feel alone. But its actually more common than you think and as a self esteem therapist its one of the most common issues my clients bring. This blog will explain how to stop friendship anxiety using self compassion which is the ultimate tool to feel calmer and more secure in your friendships .
What is friendship anxiety and do I have it?
Friendship anxiety describes what it feels like to feel insecure in our platonic relationships. Although not a diagnosed mental illness, it is a common pattern many people struggle with. Usually people who experience friendship anxiety might also experience anxiety in other areas. For example, worrying about what people in general think or worrying about mistakes at work etc.
Signs you experience friendship anxiety include
- Feeling like you cannot say no to a friend for fear of their reaction
- Not feeling you can be yourself around friends
- Worrying what your friends think of you and whether they like you, even friends you have had for a long time.
- Worrying if you have enough friends
- Getting upset after scrolling social media if you see you friend out without you because you feel left out.
- 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.
What causes friendship anxiety.
There are many factors outside our control that cause friendships anxiety and the first thing to consider is how our brains have evolved from stone age times. Even though our life has changed, our nervous system as remained the same and its designed to react instinctively to protect against threat. This means being on the look out for threats aswell as experiencing strong physical sensations to prepare our bodies to deal with them. This is known as the “fight and flight” system or our “threat” system. However, its not just sabre tooth tigers our nervous system protects us from but also other people. Back then, we needed to feel safe in our tribe in order to survive. If we were rejected then we would perish. Therefore we have an innate part of our brain that is always on the look out for how we are percieved by other people, particularly our closest connections. If that part of the brain is overactive, then we will be on high altert for rejection which means we will also be triggered our threat system more regularly in relation to friendships.
But what causes some people to have a more active threate system with friends than others? Another way to describe friendship anxiety is having an insecure attachment style. Our attachment style reflects how safe we feel in close relationships. If we have an insecure attachment style it means we will be on guard for being rejected or abandoned by people. So this will affect how we think, feel and behave around them. These patterns tend to happen involuntarily (i.e we can’t help it!) because our attachment style is embedded in our emotional systems that we are not consciously aware of. Our attachments systems are almost always determined by experiences we have had childhood.
For example, we may have experienced loss of a parent or divorce or had parents who were critical, emotionally unavailable or even neglectful or abusive. These experiences lead to low self esteem that shape on our attachment style. However, it is also possible to experience friendship anxiety due to other life experiences such as being bullied at school or having a difficult relationship with your siblings.
What is self compassion and why it helps stop friendship anxiety
Although self compassion is not a new idea, its use as a therapuetic tool is pretty cutting edge. Its taken the psychology world by storm and any therapist worth their salt will be using it to some degree.
Self compassion is much more than kindness and self care and involves specific steps to symptoms of anxiety, stress, depression and low self esteem. One way to describe it us treating yourself as you would a friend but in order to do that we need to make a conscious effort to change the way we relate to ourselves and our problems. Its really helpful for friendship anxiety because it will involve activating the exact part of the brain that is under used
For example, when I ask my therapy clients what the first they thing they would do for a friend in need before they offer any advice they answer “be there for them” “go to them” “listen” or “let them know I am there”. However, when dealing with our own problems we tend to want to run away from them. We don’t stop to tune into what is going on and how we are feeling. Doing so is the first step of self compassion and opens up a powerful way to respond to ourselves mindfully instead of.
The second thing my clients say is that they don’t judge their friends and offer them empathy. Again this is a really important difference to how we treat ourselves. So you are struggling with friendship anxiety, do you offer empathy or do you judge yourself for how you are feeling? I think we both know the answer. The more we judge the worse we feel so when we tell ourselves we cannot help it (even if we don’t believe that at first!) we are
The final step in self compassion is to offer yourself help and care by asking yourself what you need. This means we are really looking after ourselves and giving ourselves the opportunity to change how we are responding to something.
How to stop friendship anxiety using self compassion
It can take a while to cultivate self compassion because its a new skill and very different to what you have been doing.
Step 1: Mindfully and bravely tune into how you feel
We don’t realise who much we are pushing away how we feel until we make an effort to tune into it instead. To tune into how you feel involves having the courage to turn towards difficult feelings in the body with a non judgmental awareness. This in itself takes practice and mindfulness is really helpful. For example, if the thought of rejection from a friend fills your chest with dread then you will have really anxious thoughts to help you make sense, and get rid of, that feeling. But when we tune in mindfully we are breaking that cycle and “allow” feelings to be there rather than reacting to them. We can also experience them for what they are i.e. just feelings in the body rather than a sign that something bad is happening.
To do this, next time you are feeling anxious, rather than get caught up in the thoughts, find the feeling in the body. Notice its shape, colour and sensations. Resist the desire to move away into thoughts and see if you can be with the feelings. Relate to these feelings as physical sensations and label is as anxiety.
Step 2: Offer yourself empathy and acceptance
Closely linked to step 1 is offering your feelings empathy. Most clients I come across recognise straight away that they don’t do this. As soon as they become anxious about their friends they immedietely tell themselves they shouldn’t feel that way and feel ashamed. But this just keeps us in a threatened cycle and means we are unlikely to find a compassionate way to manage the problem.
When you are tuning into how you feel mindfully, remind yourself you cannot help how you feel. That you are not choosing to feel this way and that you brain is trying to protect itself. Most people find that being empathetic, rather than judgemental, towards themselves makes a big difference.
Step 3: Using our wisdom to be helpful and caring
At the end of the day if we weren’t being helpful and caring to a friend then whats the point? Therefore, the final important step in self compassion is asking what we need to helpfully deal with the problem with care and wisdom. This part can mean different things depending on what the situation is. For example, it might mean that being helpful involves looking at the situation a different way i.e that your friend is not ignoring you and probably just busy. Or it could mean reminding yourself that you are loveable and worthy if friends. It might mean that being helpful is taking a step back from the friendship and distracting yourself.
Usually people find that after the first two steps this part is easier because we are broken the cycle of resisting and judging ourselves. But asking yourself “what does this anxious part need” or “what would I say to a friend in the same situation” can be a good prompt.
How to get extra help to learn self compassion
You can work with a therapist who is trained in self compassion or teach yourself using booking, apps and courses. Most mindfulness courses teach self compassion but you can also find standalone self compassion courses and apps. Books by Kristen Neff and Paul Gilbert are very useful is understanding the theory behind self compassion.
Other ways to stop friendship anxiety
Reframe your thoughts
An important part of developing self compassion is to respond more helpfully and sometimes the most helpful thing we can do is to look at look at things a different way. However, this is itself a very powerful tool from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy that you can use on yourself. Each time you feel anxious about friends pause and note down your thoughts. Are you assuming the worst? Mind reading and jumping to conclusions. Weigh up the evidence and try to arrive at a more helpful explanation.
Learn to sooth yourself and reduce anxiety
When we’re anxious about friends our fight and flight system is activated i.e the body’s way of alerting us to danger. We then breath more quickly and our heart rate quickens which further increases anxiety and overthinking. Being able to reduce anxiety through breathing techniques is a really helpful way of regulating your emotions and getting perspective.
Learn to accept yourself and increase self esteem.
Practice mindfulness to reduce overthinking
The more we think about friendships the worst we often feel but we usually can’t stop overthinking. Therefore, learning how to reduce overthinking can be a really helpful way of dealing with friendship anxiety. You can’t always change how you think about things but you can give space to tricky thoughts and feel less anxious. Download your free guide below.
'Break Free from Overthinking' 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.
