You may think that only romantic relationships can hurt and begin to hold you back and eventually end in a painful breakup. The fallout of a romantic relationship is typically given greater weight, but when friendships fall apart, the grief can be equally profound. Friendship breakups hurt too! High time platonic breakups are acknowledged, instead of being trivialised.
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Let's clinically decode why friendship breakups can hurt so deeply. Psychiatrist Dr Amit Malik. CEO and founder of Amaha, helped simplify the psychology of this overlooked grief.
1. Why can the end of a close friendship feel as painful as a romantic breakup?
Friendships can hold immense value in your life. The psychiatrist shared the depth of this value, revealing that friendship may become deeply intertwined with your identity, daily routine, and a sense of emotional safety. So, when it ends, you may be left with a void comparable to the one caused by a romantic breakup.
Dr Malik shared what he sees in his practice: "There's a common assumption that friendship loss sits somewhere below romantic loss in the hierarchy of grief. Clinically, that doesn't hold. What we see in practice is that the end of a deep friendship can be just as destabilising, and in some ways more so, because there is far less social language for it.”
What makes it worse is the lack of social acknowledgment. When a romantic relationship ends, there are comforting rituals, such as friends supporting you or settling for a cosy movie night. But Dr Malik believed that people may feel embarrassed to even name their grief after a friendship ends, as the loss is assumed to be less significant than a romantic breakup.
He added more context on the lack of societal acknowledgment:" Unlike a romantic breakup, which society tends to frame as something to move through and beyond, friendship loss can feel like it has no acknowledged end point. No one really tells you when you're supposed to be okay, or even supports you in acknowledging that there is something to grieve at all."
So, why can romantic and friendship breakups feel similarly painful? Dr Malik confirmed that both relationships serve many similar emotional functions. Close friends witness your life over the years, including your failures, private hopes, and ordinary moments. In short, that person becomes your safe space where you feel accepted and safe to be yourself.
“Long friendships become part of who we are and how we understand ourselves. Shared references, shared history, a unique dynamic that only existed between the two of you, all of that dissolves,” Dr Malik believed it was high time to
2. Are you struggling to process a friendship breakup?
Sometimes, you may not respond overtly to the loss of a friend. The lack of social acknowledgment can also make it tough to recognise and accept the grief of parting ways with your friend, even when you are struggling underneath.
Platonic loss is not as overt. You may not be sobbing over a tub of ice cream or displaying your pain as visibly as you may after a romantic breakup, but the grief following a friendship breakup can be quieter and more restrained.
Dr Malik identified the following emotional and behavioural signs that may be tied to the loss. The doctor called these ‘the cluster of changes’:
1. Quiet social withdrawal:
- Not dramatic isolation, but a reduced appetite for connection.
- Might continue attending social gatherings, but not be emotionally present.
2. Heightened fear of rejection:
- Losing one close friend may make you unusually sensitive to perceived rejection in other friendships.
- May constantly be hypervigilant if other close relationships are safe or similarly at risk.
3. Persistent sadness or emotional flatness:
- Unprocessed grief can look like low-grade sadness that persists without an obvious cause.
- People sometimes describe it as feeling flat or as a loss of lightness.
4. Unexplained irritability
- If friendship ended without an explanation or resolution, unresolved anger may exist beneath the sadness.
- Without an outlet, it may show up as irritability in unrelated situations.
5. Loss of interest
- One stops enjoying activities they once shared with a friend, or begins to avoid places and experiences associated with them.
6. Sleep and concentration problems:
- Sleep disruptions, difficulty concentrating, and a general sense of flatness or meaninglessness that extends beyond the friendship itself can also emerge.
- This happens when the loss is sudden or in long-term friendships.
The psychiatrist then cautioned that these signs may overlap with general anxiety or low mood, which is why those who are experiencing them may not link them to the friendship fallout.
“What I'd want people to hear is this: if something feels off and you can trace it, even loosely, to a relationship that ended, that connection deserves attention. Grief that is not given a name tends to find other ways to surface,” Dr Malik revealed why friendship loss grief should not be ignored.
How to move forward after a friendship fallout ?
Finding closure is an important part of moving forward, but it may be difficult after a friendship fallout.
“Closure after a friendship breakup is genuinely harder to come by than it is after a romantic one, partly because the loss tends to be less acknowledged, and partly because the path forward is less culturally mapped," Dr Malik said.
However, he dismissed the idea that healing does not necessarily come after one decisive act. To heal, you need to be diligent with some practices, collectively. Here are some:
1. Allow yourself to grieve:
- Important starting point.
- Do not minimise the loss or tell yourself that you are being dramatic.
- If the friendship was important, the end will also feel significant.
- Give yourself permission to feel the full extent of the grief to begin the healing process.
2. Give your emotions an outlet
- Giving the experience some form of expression, whether that's through journaling, conversation with someone you trust, or working through it with a therapist, can make a hopeful difference.
- Grief that stays entirely internal tends to become circular. Putting your emotions into words may aid in understanding and eventually release what you are carrying.
3. Separate the friendship from its ending
- The friendship can have been real and valuable, and it can also have ended. Those two things don't cancel each other out.
- People sometimes feel that moving forward requires them to either discount the friendship or stay attached to it indefinitely.
- Accepting that good memories and painful endings can coexist may help you get closure.
Note to readers: This article is for informational purposes only and not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always seek the advice of your doctor with any questions about a medical condition.