When life challenges us, dark thoughts encompass our minds. We become vulnerable to many strong emotions such as grief, anxiety, fear, stress, etc. This is a phase of our life where we need and expect the support of our friends. A true friend is someone who loves the imperfect you, the wrong you, the confused you, the unlovable you. He or she is meant to be there with you in tough times. When we do not receive their empathy and help to ameliorate the situation, it adds to our pain and suffering. If your friend abandons you without any reason, it is called ghosting. It is like a hard-to-swallow pill but these situations help you recognize your real friends. Let’s know about the Friends who abandon you in hard times?
We do not have a complete hold on our emotions that makes it difficult to deal with such circumstances. But you need to mend your ways to cope with the situation. You are required to incorporate such characteristics in your personality that help you combat tough times on your own. You and your family are emotionally dependent on each other and support is required from both sides. Also, these emotionally damaging situations have in store some valuable lessons with them. This article encapsulates all the necessary pointers to ease your journey through reckless time. It will apprise you of everything you can do on your part to confront this ordeal.
Determine your self-worth
You define your self-worth. As much as you value and respect yourself, the same will be followed by your peers and other people. Always keep in mind that you are an important person and rightly deserve the love and attention you need. There is no point in grieving over someone who is not bothered about your well-being. It is not possible to suddenly start neglecting the abandonment of a friend as though it never happened. You are a human who is not provided with switches to turn on or off emotions at your convenience, unlike a robot. But acceptance is sometimes the ultimate solution to problems. Keep the process slow but steady. Avoid any sort of wishful thinking and believe that they may turn up or apologize to you. Because if it does not happen, it will break you even more. Focus on the following points-
- Try to ignore remarks such as, “Do not make a fuss over everything” or “Just get over it.” They behave as if saying such things will help you come out of the trauma. This simply means that they do not value your emotions.
- Be kind and gentle to yourself. Do not become too critical of yourself. If your friends criticize you for your condition always keep this in mind- you are not the one to blame. The time is not in your favor and no one is to be blamed.
- Focus on the bright side of life. You know whom to trust now and may have possibly saved yourself from a much worse situation.
- Abandonment leads you to find your real self.
- Talk about it and pragmatically deal with things. Surround yourself with your close relatives or other close friends. Sharing your distress always lessens it.
Every relationship you develop in your life will not necessarily stay intact forever. Most of the friendships are temporary and that is the truth. Many times people try to mask their intolerance and behave as they worry about your health. They try to point out bad habits such as overthinking, overstress, etc. you have developed while you are struggling. You know that it is wrong and your grief made you do it. Therefore, you do not require anyone to point the finger at you.
Forgiveness and acceptance
Forgiveness follows after acceptance. Both are vital stages to get over a broken friendship. Coping up with the fact that your friends left your side requires the strength of acceptance. It is necessary to get going and leave the past behind. After grieving and feeling the heartbreaking loss, you must get up and acknowledge the fact that the person is not in your life anymore. Some methods that will help you to understand that your friendship is over are as follows-
- Grieve as much as you want and take a proper amount of time for it.
- Always keep loving. Do not think that friendships will never work just because this one did not.
- Stop making any assumptions.
- Do not question why they did so. It will increase your sorrow.
- Do not keep any expectations from them.
- Do not take it personally.
- Be grateful to the people who left you. Now you can grow in the space they have abandoned for you. Also, they have shown you the importance of your true friends. They created awareness for you to appreciate those who loved you when you did not feel lovable.
Following the above-mentioned steps will also help you to forgive your friends easily. This forgiveness is not for anyone else but for your inner peace. Once you forgive your friends, you will not feel affected by their past actions. This is necessary to calm the storm you are going through in your mind. You will feel like you took a heavy burden off your chest. Forgiveness will make you serene and you will be able to take charge of the situation. Also, you will not have any negative feelings such as a grudge for the person. If your brain is accompanied by negative thoughts even if they are for someone else, it will hamper your state of mind. Take note of the following approach that can aid you to forgive your friends-
- Choose to forgive. Forgiveness is a choice just as love is.
- Stop thinking about how they hurt your feelings. Filter your thoughts and avoid constantly remembering such things otherwise, it will become hard to forget and forgive.
- Remember that you are doing it for your well-being and peace. It will free you from resentments.
- Do it because you need to be happier and not entangled in bitterness and pain.
- Do not regret it. Instead, perceive it positively and think that you have become wiser to make your future decisions in life. Do not think that it was your fault to choose such a person as your friend. Keep only the good memories with you.
- Forgive them daily as it will not happen overnight. When you are hurt deeply, you require a lot of time and patience in the restoration process
Identify the right people
One good option is to communicate with those who understand you and what you are going through. They can be either your other close friends, family members, or close relatives. You can seek their help to create a positive outlook towards difficult situations. You must have heard this quote, “You become the median of the five people you surround yourself with for the majority of your time.” Fake friends are no more than a shadow. They will be with you in the brightest of times but nowhere to be found in the darkness. It will be very easy for you to distinguish between a true friend and a fake friend in times of hardship. You can know your true friends only when their friendship is at the test. Look for those who stick around and who do not.
Surrounding yourself with people of a positive mindset will help you to see the positive side of life as well. Sharing your trauma with them will lessen it to a good extent. The people who care for you will never hurt you. They will try to understand your needs. You can make them your safe place. You should discuss your hardships with them so that mutual discussions end up with possible solutions.
Self-sufficiency
Many a time you are not able to connect to any other person and it is absolutely fine. But sometimes you may feel that no one is there to support or understand you and your needs. And even if we find the right people, we become dependent on them. The slightest change in their behavior starts affecting us. Having relationships is indeed one of our important life factors but being completely dependent on them is not one. Both situations can prove to be harmful to us. Therefore, it is very necessary to believe in yourself whether you have someone by your side or not. Remember, self-help is the best help.
No one can deny the fact that you understand yourself in the best possible way. You know your true needs better than other people. Therefore, nothing can be better than you becoming your strength. People may leave a self-sufficient person but can never break them. Here is how you can lead the path to self-sufficiency:
- This trait develops with an increase in self-esteem. Thinking of being unable to care for yourself without other people’s help is linked to low self-esteem. Avoid it.
- Be comfortable with the independence you get.
- Be assertive. It will help you to combat the feelings of emotional dependence.
- Comprehend the main reason for dependence. It will help you fix the hurdle on the path of self-sufficiency.
- Feel proud of yourself and your achievements.
Shift your focus
After giving yourself adequate time to recover, this issue should no longer come on your priority list. Your friends do not treat you as something important. Therefore, investing your time thinking about them will be of no use. Utilize your time in other fruitful activities you would like to do. Focus on how you can make it through the hard times so that life can go back to normal.
It is well known that ‘You have to keep going with life and the living has to remain.’ Experiencing different struggles in life only makes us wiser for our future decisions. Remember that time always tends to change. Patiently wait for your share of joyful moments while you go through the days of adversity. When people leave you, you find yourself. God never lets you go through something you cannot handle. Try to become strong and flexible, love yourself and others too but keep moving forward whatsoever.
Time does not wait for anyone so we have to get everything done within the given time frame. Indulge in your day-to-day work and celebrate your progress in it. Many other things require your immediate attention as well. These tips may help you out-
- Concentrate on your life goals as they should be your priority. If you won’t, it will add up to the existing problems. Do not stress too much but pay attention to it.
- Meditate. It will help you calm down and filter your thoughts. Your body has also been under a lot of stress lately. Complete peace of mind and heart is all you need.
- Make a complete schedule of the day to keep yourself busy.
- Spend some time working on your hobbies too. It will keep you elated as well as engaged.
- Define your priorities and put your efforts into working on them.
- Take help from someone such as your parents or siblings if you need to start focusing on the right things every day.
- Indulge yourself in reading positive content so that it can divert you from negative thoughts and emotions. Your mind decides how you feel and comprehend things.
Why do friends abandon us during hardships?
Three vital factors that can explain this are as follows-
- They do not like talking about trauma:
According to psychologists, people do not like to face trauma. They will find it easier to grieve for your death rather than staying by your side and facing it. However strange it may feel, it is what it is. Another reason they do not want to face trauma is that they may already be going through major issues in their own lives. Maybe that is why they are not obliged to be available to you. They may think that they will not be able to tackle your and their issues together. Therefore, they may have started avoiding you to manage their mental peace.
- They were just faking the friendship the whole time:
This is something you can feel yourself. You may have felt that you made the wrong judgment by choosing them and they are not those friends you probably thought they were. People tend to run away from or avoid situations that need sacrifice or any kind of compromise. It is a common human behavior. They may have never probably felt so deeply for you though you always thought they will be there irrespective of anything. You would have felt so because they certainly have made you believe that you are a good acquaintance to them but never actually meant that. Therefore, they would have either come up with excuses or abandoned you.
- They were meant to depart from your life:
It is not necessary for someone to never leave your life. Perhaps, the road of your journey was not the same as theirs. It is not something good or bad. It is just life. Many a time, you too have to change the direction of your path to avoid storms in your way. People tend to change their courses due to some reason. We evolve as we grow and live. We do not understand it right now but the reasons naturally show up with time. However, this does not justify their actions. It is a cowardly thing to cut off people from your life to avoid certain outcomes. People should simply mention to their friends that they are unable to help instead of leaving them. It is not for the sake of friendship but humanity.
Should we accept them as our friends after forgiving them?
If it is for the first time your friends abandoned you even though they were always there for you before, they deserve a chance. They may be having genuine reasons that they could not explain before. But if they never showed up at times of difficulty it is better to leave them for your good. People who keep breaking your expectations should not be entertained any further in your life. As humans, we all know the importance of empathy and what impact it has on us in times of difficulty. If they are unable to show empathy even a single time, they do not respect you or place you as a valuable person in your life. They do not understand that the significance of an apology lies in not repeating the same mistake.
Friends turning their back on you in hardships is unbearable pain. But time heals everything. Enduring the pain and letting it lessen with time is all you can do. Thinking about the past has never done anyone good. This article will surely serve as a guide for you to get life back to normal and make you stronger than ever.
