Lucy and Ethel. Bert and Ernie. Romy and Michele. Where would we be without our friends? Nowhere good, we’re told. A lot of thescience on friendshipsand health focuses on how good friends produce happy, mentally well-adjusted people. After all, our friendships are some of the most valuable relationships we have. We often talk to friends in confidence about things we wouldn’t discuss with our families. Our friends may annoy us, but they can also keep us going.

Butother evidenceincreasingly suggests that bad friends, or even well-intentioned ones with bad habits, can negatively impact your mental health. This causes your mind and body severe stress or leads to problematic patterns. A recentUniversity College London studyfound that close relationships that cause stress or worrying may even contribute to faster cognitive decline as you age.

Types of Friends Who are Detrimental to Your Mental Health

While troubled friendships arefar less likelyto lead to mental health issues than troubled marriages are, like marriage, friendships also have negative characteristics. Here are seven types that might be doing more harm than good:

1. The Promise Breaker

2. The Dramatic One

3. The Negative Nancy

Moods are contagious, and while there’s nothing wrong with venting to coworkers or crying to your BFF when you’re feeling low, constantly being around negative influences can hurt your own emotions.

4. The Competitor

Somecompetitioncan be healthy — if your friend’s goals or achievements serve as motivation for you — but if the Competitor wants what you have, acts in a hostile way, and will do anything to not only to get what you have, but take it away, this could cost you.

5. The Bad Influence

Friends who are bad influences are not just from your pre- and teenage years. Your grown-up friends can also lead you astray. On one hand you need your debaucherous friends to pull you out of the drudgery of adult life and remind you that you can still live life on the edge every now and again. However, problem pals can get you into trouble, increasing youranxietyand hurting your overall health.

6. The One That Fights

Friends fight; it’s inevitable. You will even find yourself arguing with your best friend more than anyone else. But relationships that produce a high level of conflict areassociated with increased depressionand decreased self-esteem.

7. The Know-It-All

This is that friend who always knows the best restaurant to go to, the best way to get there, and the best thing to order. She always has to have the last word, and can never admit when she’s wrong or say she’s sorry. It’s no fun to hang out with someone who thinks she knows everything. For one thing, they’re not really listening to you, except to correct you or one-up you. And for another, it’s insulting and frustrating to always be put down and belittled.

Knowing For Sure if the Friendship is Negative

While answering these questions is a good start, deciding whether or not a relationship is good for you isn’t simple or easy. Sometimes we need professional help to deal with the effects of potentially ending a relationship. If answering these questions convinces you that your friend is a bad influence,consider talking to a therapistto decide what you should do next.

Our goal at Talkspace is to provide the most up-to-date, valuable, and objective information on mental health-related topics in order to help readers make informed decisions.

Articles contain trusted third-party sources that are either directly linked to in the text or listed at the bottom to take readers directly to the source.

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