Learning to Prioritize Self Care After a Friendship Breakup

Recently, I’ve lost all my close friends over the summer. I ended up having to break off a toxic friendship with a really close friend of mine for my mental health. Although I know that this decision is the best for me, I still can’t help but feel sad and lonely. Because I was his friend, his friends were also my friends. But now that I don’t talk to him anymore, they end up drifting away. I try to deal with this loneliness by doing stuff that I enjoy like drawing or spending more time with the family, but once in a while I will think about that how it ended and what could’ve been done to prevent that from happening. The situation just makes me so sad because growing up, I never really had a friend or at least not good ones. So I don’t honestly know what a genuinely good and healthy friendship is supposed to like since all the past friendships I’ve made were either toxic or superficial. I also am and still extremely introverted and do get socially anxious around others in certain situations. Honestly, after losing all the people that I thought would stick by me throughout my life, it also made me realize how disconnected I was with myself. Like how much I neglected my own needs to satisfy others pretty much. I’d constantly worry about what others were doing without me. But I’ve gotten to a breaking point in life where I don’t want this grief and sorrow to define my life. I don’t want to cry anymore about the “what could’ve been” and “what could’ve been not.” I’m so tired of reflecting about my past and feeling sorry for myself. For me, it gets exhausting after a while. Like mentally and emotionally. There’s just so much more I want to do for myself. And as of right now, I want to prioritize myself better like I have been for the past few weeks. Once in a while, I do find myself dwelling and crying about it, I let it out when needed and find the motivation to take care of myself again. Although friends are no longer on my priority list, I do hope that I find good friends one day. But if not, that’s okay too. If anything, this friendship breakup taught me to prioritize my own self care. Most importantly, to be a better friend towards myself. :) Hope everyone is doing well! Take care y’all ❤️