S26 Ep7: The Importance of Friendship with Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mette

Summary

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Something Was Wrong – S26 Ep7: The Importance of Friendship with Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta

Podcast: Something Was Wrong (Broken Cycle Media)
Date: July 23, 2026
Host: Tiffany Reiss
Guest: Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the under-discussed but vital role of friendship in human development, emotional well-being, and resilience, particularly during adolescence and times of trauma or betrayal. Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta, a psychologist and professor at the University of Buffalo, shares research-backed insights into how friendships shape our sense of belonging, trust, and self-understanding. The conversation addresses unique challenges faced in friendships (including betrayal and neurodiversity), compares them to familial and romantic relationships, and offers practical guidance for building connection and processing friendship trauma.

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Guest Introduction and Credentials

• [03:34] Host introduces Dr. Mehta, summarizing her extensive background in clinical psychology, group and couples therapy, forensic assessment, and university counseling.
• Focuses on her research into the importance of adolescence friendships and their impact on well-being and emotional health.

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The Unique Importance of Friendship

Why Focus on Friendship?

• [03:54] Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta:
  “Adolescence is this really magical, intense, sometimes miserable, but amazing time in life… forming these friendships and sometimes romantic relationships that ultimately bridge them out of their family of origin into their later life.”
• [05:05] Friendships are voluntary and egalitarian; they serve as the first context for building vital social and emotional skills outside of the family.
• Friendships fulfill key human needs: autonomy, competence, acceptance, and belonging.

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Belonging, Resilience, and Adolescence

• [07:13] Dr. Mehta:
  “The key developmental task of adolescence is to develop autonomy and individuate... if they can belong somewhere, like in a friend group or with non-familial adults, that can really bolster resilience against having a crappy early family life.”
• Lack of belonging in both family and peer groups during adolescence leaves kids feeling untethered and increases risk for loneliness and depressive symptoms.
  Key moment: Importance of "finding your tether" in peer relationships.

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Friendships vs. Family/Romantic Relationships

• [08:50] Dr. Mehta:
  “With our families there is an expectation for unconditional love and support… with romantic relationships, there's… physical intimacy and affection. Friendships also have that expectation of emotional closeness, and they're voluntary."
• Societal expectation: “Friends are forever,” which often leads to the idea that friendship is stable and ever-present, sometimes even more so than romantic relationships.

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Trust and Friendship Betrayal

The Role of Trust

• [10:29] Dr. Mehta:
  “Trust is a key element… in close, intimate friendships, I think trust is the linchpin."
• Built through shared disclosure, validated by support and acceptance.

Betrayal Defined and Its Harm

• [11:47] Dr. Mehta: “That higher level of emotional intimacy also increases vulnerability to being possibly hurt... that is the essence of betrayal—it shakes and rattles that foundation of trust that we thought we had.”
• [13:06] Betrayal is a violation of explicit or implicit expectations—often a shocking experience that leads to questioning one's judgment.

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Emotional Impact: Friendship vs. Romantic Betrayal

• [16:43] Dr. Mehta:
  “Our brain processes social pain very similarly to how it processes physical pain… friendship betrayal pain is as valid or justified as romantic relationship pain.”
• Societal minimization of friendship pain, especially for women, is common—sometimes leading to an “empathy Olympics,” where pain is measured and ranked rather than validated.

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Processing, Repair, and Self-Understanding after Betrayal

• [20:35] Dr. Mehta:
  “It definitely can cause us to question our capacity for being a good judge of character or even who we are at our core… all of that has a lot of implications for how that memory is laid down.”
• Importance of making space to process betrayal and reflect accurately on responsibility and meaning, to prevent maladaptive patterns in future relationships.

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Friendship and Neurodiversity

• [23:30] Discussion of why neurodivergent individuals, especially autistic women, may face unique challenges with belonging.
• [25:21] Dr. Mehta:
  “It is certainly not the case that friendships mean less to individuals with neurodevelopmental differences… It just might look a little bit different.”
• Discussion on the need for more research and for expanding conceptions of friendship to validate a wider range of experiences.

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Friendship in the “Loneliness Epidemic”

• [27:24] Dr. Mehta:
  "It's really not just our social health and emotional health, but our physical health too... We're so hyperconnected via technology and yet people keep saying, but I'm lonely, I feel isolated. That human connection, there just doesn't seem to be a substitute for it."
• Online engagement vs. real-time connection: Passive scrolling correlates with greater loneliness; active engagement can be beneficial, especially for those with marginalized identities.

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Practical Guidance for Building Connections

• [34:08] Dr. Mehta:
  “What are your goals as an individual human being? What level of social interaction feels good to you? … What scares you? Where do you think you might find the social connections you’re looking for?”
• Small “behavioral experiments” (e.g., giving a compliment at a bookstore) can gradually build confidence and social skills.
• Encouragement to do things “scared, little bit at a time,” and consider therapy or volunteering for additional connection.

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Risks and Rewards: Not All Friendships Are Positive

• [38:37] Dr. Mehta:
  “Not all friendships have benefits, not all friendships are uniformly positive… One really fascinating construct in this literature… is the idea of co-rumination.”
• [41:52] Co-rumination ("commiserating") feels good and creates bonding, but predicts increases in depression and anxiety over time. Balance and variety are key for healthy friendships.
• Overreliance on reassurance-seeking in friendships can strain relationships, especially when one person is experiencing depression.

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Group Rejection vs. One-on-One Friendship

• [46:58] Dr. Mehta:
  “For kids who are actually rejected… by the group, that is not great… but if they have at least one friend, it seems to buffer them from the worst effects.”
• Adults have more volition to change environments but may still suffer perceived rejection, which studies show does not always match reality—perceived rejection can become self-fulfilling, especially for those experiencing distress.

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The Importance of Authenticity

• [53:11] Dr. Mehta to Tiffany Reiss:
  “What is so beautiful about your approach is that you’re putting your authentic self out there... you're giving yourself that opportunity, allowing for the possibility of a connection.”
• Encouragement for listeners: Most of the time, reaching out pays off, and authentic connection is worth pursuing, even if it sometimes stings.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On co-rumination:
  “Think of it like cake. Cake, wonderful. But you don’t want to eat it all day long every day, you’re going to feel terrible.” – Dr. Mehta [42:25]

• On empathy:
  “Empathy is not pie. One person having compassion for something that you consider a Tuesday, that's a life changing event for them is still valid.” – Tiffany Reiss [19:03]

• On loneliness in a hyperconnected world:
  “That human connection… there just doesn’t seem to be a substitute for it.” – Dr. Mehta [27:24]

• On the brains’ response to betrayal:
  “Our brain processes social pain very similarly to how it processes physical pain.” – Dr. Mehta [16:43]

• On self-perceived rejection:
  “If people aren’t feeling that great… they might perceive that other people don’t like them. But that might not be the case.” – Dr. Mehta [50:09]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:48: Dr. Mehta's introduction and entry into psychology
• 05:05: Why friendships are critical in development
• 10:29: Trust in friendships
• 13:01: How betrayal in friendship feels and why
• 16:43: Brain response—friendship betrayal vs. romantic betrayal
• 20:35: Psychological repair after significant betrayal
• 23:30: Neurodivergence and friendship
• 27:24: Loneliness epidemic and the role of friendship
• 34:08: Practical advice for making connections
• 38:37: Not all friendships are beneficial; co-rumination explained
• 46:58: Group vs. individual friend rejection, and perceived rejection
• 53:11: The value of authenticity in forming connections

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Closing Remarks

The episode underlines that friendship is a vital, complex topic deserving of as much attention and care as romantic or family relationships. Listeners are encouraged to acknowledge the real pain of friendship betrayal, embrace their own unique social needs, and approach connection—imperfectly and authentically—for a healthier, more meaningful life.

For more from Dr. Mehta, check the episode notes for resources and her published work.

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Transcript

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[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

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[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

Oh, my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

[Tiffany Reiss]

How did you first become interested in psychology?

[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

I often think about this question and I think the answer I have is really simple, which is that I've always thought both as a human being going through the developmental stage of adolescence, but also as a psychologist, that adolescence is this really magical, intense, sometimes miserable, but amazing time in life where people are kind of branching out from their families. It's really kind of that first time people are breaking out into the world as a person and forming these friendships and sometimes romantic relationships that ultimately sort of bridge them out of their family of origin into their later life. And these relationships have such a lasting impact on people. And I just have always wanted to better understand that.

[Tiffany Reiss]

That's amazing and so important. And I feel like friendship feels like a topic that isn't necessarily discussed at the same rates of familial and romantic relationships. It's so interesting because when I reflect, I think about how important friendship plays a role in my life. What makes friendship relationships uniquely important from a developmental and psychological perspective?

[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

Yeah, you're totally right that our family relationships and romantic relationships get more attention both in the media and in our conversations, and also to some extent in research. But friendships are so important to development and psychological health because they are voluntary, egalitarian relationships that kids, when they're younger at least, start to choose for themselves. They're based on attraction, like some of our other voluntary relationships are. But friendships, of course, without that kind of romantic component, they become our first training ground where we start to learn our social skills, how we regulate emotions, how the world works, how other people work. You know, we've got experience from our families, and then we go out and try that stuff out with other people outside of our families. And so friendships are an essential context for building the social and emotional skills that carry people, people through into their adult lives. Additionally, like those other really important relationships, friendships really ping our main human needs. Like our needs for autonomy, right to be our own person, so to speak, Our needs for competence to be good or seen as good at something, but also our need for being accepted and our need to belong that is baked into our human DNA. So friendships are essential for that sense of acceptance and belonging at a really critical time in development. And I'm talking about kind of like that middle childhood, early adolescence into adolescence period.

[Tiffany Reiss]

That's something that really struck me in the work that we did. When doing research on a previous season we did where we discussed the so called troubled teen industry. And what stood out to me is how many survivors talked about a feeling of lacking a sense of belonging and feeling rejected at home and then feeling rejected through these other systems. And it just made me come to realize how important that feeling and sense of belonging truly is. Especially at that time in your life, it feels like your friends are kind of everything.

[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

Why is that such a good question? Well, if we zoom way, way out, the key developmental task of adolescence is to develop autonomy and individuate. We might use the word from our family of origin because your family's supposed to love you, right? And they don't always, they don't always do their job, they don't always do all the right things, like the situation that you mentioned with kids whose families didn't provide for them. And so if they don't have that sense of belonging, then the good news is if they can belong somewhere, like in a friend group or with non familial adults, that can really bolster kids resilience against having a crappy early family life. But when the peer group or a child's own peers or our own contemporaries, we also feel rejected by that. Then adolescents, they're not yet adults, so they're just sort of untethered. Right. And that feeling of maybe I don't belong anywhere. For adolescents whose emotions, their bodies, like everything is really, really intense. And so if that's the sort of social perception that adolescents have, like, hey, I don't really feel like I belong anywhere, that's incredibly impactful in a negative way. And so adolescence really is critical for kids to be able to form those friendships, those relationships outside of the family, because that's truly what tethers them as they move forward as an individual.

[Tiffany Reiss]

Thank you so much. And how do friendships differ from family or romantic relationships in terms of expectations and emotional investment?

[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

That's a good question. So with our families, and I mean here, both biological families, adoptive families, chosen family, you know, family is a big umbrella category in my book. But with our families there is an expectation, I think to some degree for unconditional love and support. And of course, as I mentioned, that doesn't always happen. But the key thing that delineates family from other relationships is that we don't always choose them, at least at the beginning. And then with romantic relationships, it's interesting, in many romantic relationships there is an expectation of physical intimacy and affection as well as that emotional closeness. Friendships also have that expectation of emotional Closeness, they're also voluntary. But with romantic relationships, there's this sense, and I guess I'm speaking mostly about Western culture here, but there's this sense that we're supposed to pick the right person, right?

[Tiffany Reiss]

That we're like searching.

[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

Yes, yes, we're searching for this person. We just have to find them. And so we tend to have fewer romantic partnerships or really close, intimate romantic relationships than we do friends. That's not always the case. But in contrast to that, there's this idea that friends are forever. Like, okay, maybe my family wasn't so great, but my friends, they're supposed to be there. My romantic partners, they may come and go, right? Or I haven't found the one yet. But our friends, there's just this baked in societal expectation that friends are stable, friends are there, friends have our back through no matter what else. And what other relationships we might be going through.

[Tiffany Reiss]

What role does trust play in maintaining close friendships?

[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

It's huge. Trust is a key element. Sometimes people talk about it in terms of emotional intimacy or closeness, but that trust, the sense of, I can tell you things, you will receive them responsibly and hold them, and I can believe what you say to me, we've got this bond that is a key aspect of close friendships. And it's typically developed via sharing thoughts and feelings or just disclosures. Right. Sharing different pieces of the self and then receiving reactions, validation, support from the other person. The space is created where people within this close friendship can in theory, be their authentic selves. We know we can't always be that way, maybe with our family or maybe even our romantic relationships at times. But I think trust is massive in friendships. It sort of all hinges on that. Of course, you know, we might have other kinds of friends, like, oh, this is my friend that I go play racquetball with. And that's mostly a fun thing. But in terms of those close, intimate friendships, I think trust is the linchpin.

[Tiffany Reiss]

Can greater emotional intimacy, building that trust and that increased vulnerability affect the level of hurt when there is friendship betrayal in a relationship?

[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

Yes. Yeah. So that's the other side of that sharing of the self that contributes to that development of trust is that now parts of the self have been shared. So that higher level of emotional intimacy also sort of increases that vulnerability to being possibly hurt. And that's, I think, why the disclosure builds that strong intimacy and that strong expectation of our friends. Because it's like, hey, here's this really maybe secret or special or not altogether public part of myself. They don't tell everybody this, they're sharing that with a friend. And then if the friend doesn't meet expectations for respectfully holding that and treating it with kindness and compassion and all of that, and turns around and shares that with others or is otherwise invalidating, that is the essence of the betrayal, right? It's like, wow, you really hit me where it hurts. That investment of disclosure and vulnerability when that's betrayed through gossip or secrets being shared, it gets us right where it hurts and it sort of shakes and rattles that foundation of trust that we thought that we had.

[Tiffany Reiss]

From a psychological perspective, how do you define friendship betrayal?

[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

I feel like in its essence it's a violation of expectations. Whether they were explicit, like hey, I really don't want you to do X, Y and Z. And then the person goes and does X, Y and Z. It typically involves broken trust, maybe broken promises, and the feeling that almost like somehow a fox was let inside the hen house. You know, like, how did I not see this threat? It's like this huge surprise. This wasn't supposed to happen because insert friendship expectations here. So I think that betrayal, it can look a lot of different ways depending on the relationship. For some, a friendship betrayal might be oh, you told so and so. This piece of information I ask you not to share with them. Everybody is different and the information or the characteristics of the betrayal, what might feel awful to one person may be less impactful for another.

[Tiffany Reiss]

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[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

Yes, absolutely. I'm speaking in broad sleeping generalities here, but our brain is really wired to be attentive to threats. Of course, physical threats, but also social threats. And so the mechanics or the brain parts and functions that contribute to our ability to sort of scan our environment for threats, keep ourselves safe from threats, or anticipate threats. It's the same part of the brain. Regardless of what type of relationship we're talking about, what may delineate this sort of impact might be some of the things that we've already been talking about, like expectations for the friendship, certainly the length of the friendship. You know, there's a lot of environmental or sort of non biological characteristics that can mitigate the reactivity or exacerbate that betrayal reactivity. But yeah, it links right into our brain. And our brain processes social pain very similarly to how it processes physical pain. Our brain's job is just to keep us alive and surviving. And of course that involves physical survival. But humans are social creatures and that's why that belonging and acceptance is tied to our survival, much like our physical safety. Absolutely. It will react in the same way. Getting back to those environmental characteristics that might ramp up the reactivity or tamp it down. Our society doesn't always allow for or communicate that friendship betrayal pain is as valid or justified as romantic relationship pain. I don't know exactly why that is, but I do think especially for cishet women who close friends are also female identified, they may be sort of comparing reactions of like, oh, my female friend hurt me, or this guy I was in a relationship with hurt me. There's this expectation that somehow the romantic pain is going to hurt more. I don't want to get into a really big argument around sexism, but I do think that that is responsible for some of society's expectations about what is allowed to hurt and what should just be fine or like, just get over it. Does that make sense?

[Tiffany Reiss]

Oh, totally. And one thing that struck me as soon as I started working on the show is that a lot of folks in the beginning would have a response of like, well, I've been through worse than this person was talking about, or I've heard worse. And it was like an empathy Olympics. And I was like, guys, empathy is not pie. Like, one person having compassion for something that you consider a Tuesday, that's a life changing event for them is still valid. And it doesn't change anything about the amount of empathy that you deserve. There's something about our society that really lends to this sort of scarcity mindset. I don't know if it's all the competition, reality shows or what, or the diet culture or what, the patriarchy. But, like, it's not pie. Everyone can have it. And the more we offer to other people, the more we receive and the more we can expand other people's empathy. So this season we're talking with survivors who have experienced very extreme friendship betrayal, such as a pastor who ends up becoming a stalker who breaks into a survivor's home, or a group of friends whose classmate faked multiple pregnancies and deaths, or a woman who was catfished by her best friend in the military. On the other side of that, what is the repair like for that person? And how can significant friendship trauma impact person's sense of self and security?

[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

Oh, gosh, I'm still resonating and just reeling from those examples that you shared. It's important. I'm really glad you're getting the word out. In terms of how betrayal seems to impact our sense of who we are, it definitely can cause us to question our capacity for being a good judge of character or even who we are at our core. I think when we again choose these voluntary relationships with friends, we don't go into them being like, oh, I'll just take anybody, right? We're discerning. Typically we look for clues, hey, this person is safe, or I feel good around this person. We don't just like trip fall into friendships, typically, at least not long term ones that are built over time. And so when things don't go well, our society, and then certainly us will look inward and go like, what did we not see? That hindsight, sort of Monday morning quarterbacking, if you will, of what was the writing on the wall and did I miss it? And what does that mean about me that I didn't see this coming? And so in terms of long term effects and how someone might start to try to pick up the pieces, particularly in these extreme instances, but also in, you know, your garden variety, like someone shared a secret. I didn't want to be public. It's really important for the person to allow themselves to have the space to feel and process, because what meaning people make of these betrayals, the responsibility that they attribute to themselves, to other people, to external circumstances, all of that has a lot of implications for how that memory is laid down. And when we go forward in our life, say, try to move on, try to reconnect with existing friends, our past is going to color our expectations of the future. So really getting clear on, hey, did I have a part in this or did I not? You know, at a really basic level, I think is really important. And we can only do that level of processing if we make the space to acknowledge this is a really big deal.

[Tiffany Reiss]

Yeah, absolutely. I'm curious, as a neurodivergent person myself, have you found research that speaks to why sometimes neurodivergent individuals can have more struggles when it comes to friendship or that feeling of belonging? It's a theme I often hear, especially from autistic women. They're very well liked and usually often socially accepted. But there's sort of a barrier with either group dynamics or becoming super close with friends. Does that mean that it is less important to neurodivergent individuals or is it a different way of sort of being within friendships?

[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

Hmm, that's such a good question. The research on the friendships of neurodivergent individuals or individuals with neurodevelopmental conditions is there, but I would say we've got a lot more to do. We basically know about kids with severe intellectual disability. Unsurprisingly, you might go to the literature and see like, oh, yeah, they sometimes have trouble making friends or things like that. But I think that's a very limited view because the population of individuals with neurodevelopmental differences is huge. And the types of differences that we're talking about, there's no one size fits all explanation. But just speaking in broad terms about some of the neurodevelopmental differences that I think are increasingly Part of the conversation, both in our, our everyday, but also in the science community. We know that certain differences, like attention issues, inattention, or like adhd. And I should qualify here. A lot of this research, most of this research is on children. I'm not necessarily speaking to adults, although I think there could be some extrapolation here. It is certainly not the case that friendships mean less to individuals with neurodevelopmental differences. We know that nonverbal individuals have important relationships and show affection and need, that sense of acceptance and belonging. But as you said, it just might look a little bit different. One of the things that can be a challenge is like, say, with problems of inattention, the ability to pick up on multiple sources of stimuli all at once. Say, in the middle of a really crowded social environment. Like a party, right?

[Tiffany Reiss]

Oh yeah, I'm sweating the whole time.

[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

Well, you make a great point. Even just being in certain situations, we all have different levels of sensitivity to stimuli. Whether that's noise or light or the fancy outfit we bought to go to the party, it's all there. And so somebody may have that going on, which may distract them from picking up on all the social cues that are out there. Younger kids with ADHD sometimes miss the cues from peers of like, oh, you know, you're talking a little bit too loud. Or sometimes they'll have trouble doing what we call group entry. If they see a group of kids doing an activity, they might be more likely than neurotypical kids to jump right in, which kids without neurodevelopmental differences might have different expectations about. So I absolutely want to make the point that social relationships are as essential and as important to individuals with neurodevelopmental differences as those without. And I love that we are creating more space and more conversation for those differences. We talked a lot about expectations about friendships, and my hope is that we continue to expand what it means to be a friend and create more shades of gray and more possibilities, because I think that will only help to validate the experiences that neurodivergent people have had their entire life.

[Tiffany Reiss]

I just love too that there's so many more conversations about how we show up differently in the world and that's okay. And honestly, each of my close friendships that I have, they're all so different and the relationship is so different and it's very individual based. I just think that's a great thing and it doesn't have to look the same. Even with the same person with multiple friends, those relationships can look different. And that's the beauty of friendship. I read recently a study that said friendship, it was actually more important to expanding folks lives than people realize. And I don't want to butcher the statistics, but basically headline. Was friendship really important? I assume you agree? Yes.

[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

Oh my goodness, yes. And to be honest, when I first got involved in research as a undergraduate student and first started getting my feet wet, I didn't recognize just how important friendships are and these social connections are. It's really not just our social health and emotional health, but our physical health too. The Surgeon General a couple years back declared an epidemic of loneliness and that is seemingly the case. We're so hyperconnected via technology and yet people keep saying, but I'm lonely, I feel isolated. That human connection there just doesn't seem to be a substitute for it. It really is essential.

[Tiffany Reiss]

I'm so glad you brought that up. It feels like we are, like you said, hyperconnected. We are the most connected we've ever been if we choose to be. And yet people are reporting loneliness at really scary rates. What do you feel like in your opinion is leading to that isolation in friendships and leaving people feeling that isolation?

[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

I'm glad we're entering an era of science around social media where I think researchers are taking a lot of nuance in studying not just like are you online or not and what are your outcomes but like what are you doing online, how are you feeling all of that? Because I think it really depends on how people are spending their time. So yes, you're totally right. It's everywhere. People are online hours and hours and hours a day. I have a teenager in the house. I see this with my own eyes. It is remarkable that humans now have this kind of normalcy around being so hyper connected and yet we still don't really understand what it's doing for us. But what we do understand is that when people are passively in engaged online, maybe they're scrolling through friends profiles or just doom scrolling, sort of putting themselves at the mercy of the algorithm, so to speak. And it's designed to keep your attention right when people say like, oh, I just got on my phone to do this one thing and 45 minutes later I was feeling like shit. Anyway, that kind of chronic online ness seems to be associated with the worst outcomes. But for people who may not have in person face to face interaction opportunities, whether geographically they're isolated or maybe they have marginalized identities and they don't have a lot of actual social connections in their immediate geographical vicinity and they're actively engaging with others, maybe they're getting information. Maybe they're talking in real time, face to face, maybe they're gaining, maybe they're working together. Those kinds of things, especially for people with high, high levels of social anxiety or as I mentioned, minoritized identities, they can find those connections and they seem to be more helpful. So I think it's a matter of how people are using the technology. But I always say if you're just scrolling, watch how you feel. It's a very well established phenomenon at this point that people feel worse when they just scroll. But if people are actively connecting with others in real time, it can actually be really, really beneficial. We're so human, we don't have computers for brains yet. And our brain was developed for human connection. It only does so much with scrolling. It's not going to meet those same needs. We're not going to develop the same social skills. Like waiting for a friend to call you back on the phone that you share with the rest of your family or like making plans. The kind of patience and tolerance of uncertainty that honestly can cause a lot of problems for folks when they live in the world of kind of instant gratification. Social media and online everything. Those kinds of old school experiences, I guess we would say now those are what our brain is craving. So it's really important to understand that we still have a human brain and if all we're feeding it is computer stuff, we're not going to end up the kinds of human adults with the same skills and capacities unless we really engage in that human face to face people.

[Tiffany Reiss]

I agree. I think we need more human connection. I'd like to thank our sponsor, Shopify. If you've been sitting on a business idea, Shopify makes it easy to make that happen. Everything you need to start selling is included and ready to go. From day one, Shopify is the all in one platform to build, run and grow your online business. And I love that they offer 24. 7 support and even have online courses to learn tricks from their experts. And lots of other thoughtful tools to help you get started. Shopify powers millions of businesses worldwide. From household names like Mattel and Gymshark to small businesses just getting started. And with Shopify, nothing stands between your idea and a real business. So go make one. Start your free trial at shopify.comSWW that's shopify.com SW S H O-P-I-F-Y.comSW thank you so much.

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[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

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[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

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[Tiffany Reiss]

What tips would you give those individuals who are looking for more connection?

[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

If I were talking with any given individual who is telling me, I'm really lonely, I feel really isolated, I don't know what to do, I would ask them, okay, what are your goals as an individual human being? What level of social interaction connection feels good to you? It's going to vary. It's going to be different from person to person. And then I would ask them, okay, now what's in the way? Is it anxiety? Is it uncertainty? Is it logistics? A lot of times people will say, well, I just don't know if, you know, anybody wants to be my friend or some variation of that. I think we all because it's so important to us, we're liable to worry about it. I mean, that's why social anxiety is a thing, right? If we didn't care about social connection, we'd be like, okay, whatever. But it is important to us, and so we are likely to worry about our capacity, what others will think. That's a big one. And so I would just explore that and I would really break it down and say, all right, what scares you? What do you think you could do? Where do you think you might find the kinds of social connections that you're looking for that would sort of feed your soul, so to speak, and then start doing what scares you? That tends to be where we end up. When I talk with people who want to be loved, less socially isolated or more socially connected, I want to hone in on what is scary and then break that down. A lot of what scares us is not real, or at least it's not happening to us in the moment. And so if there is something that is really scary. Like the what if? Everything that goes in the what if column, then we just really take a look at that, and then we get to know it through maybe planned behavioral experiments. What do you need to do this week? Oh, I gotta run errands. I gotta go get gas or, you know, go to the bookstore or whatever. And then we just set up some experiments to start developing those skills. An experiment might be like, all right, smile and give a compliment to the person that you see at the bookstore or something like that. For some people, that might not feel like anything. For others, that might feel like, really, really, really scary. For most people, they have enough skills, it's seeing themselves in the situation and learning after the fact, oh, wow, I did that and I didn't die. But basically it's like, oh, wow, I did go to that party. And you know what? I left before it was over because that's what I wanted to do. But I went. And before I went, I thought it would be horrible, but it wasn't. That is so impactful to build.

[Tiffany Reiss]

Right?

[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

Because that's the new memory. That's the new memory that gets laid down. I can tolerate this. I survived this. That then gets called up the next time somebody wants to do that same thing or something a little bit harder. What we want to break up is the reliance on the worry thoughts as memory. If someone is like, gosh, I want to be more socially connected, but I'm really worried this is going to happen, that's where they stop. Then that is always going to be the thought or the worry that comes up when they think about doing the thing that they want to do. And it might keep them stuck. Absolutely.

[Tiffany Reiss]

It's like, do it scared little bit at a time. I also cannot recommend therapy enough. I suspect you agree. And. And yeah. And also I cannot recommend volunteering enough. It's a great way to socialize, push yourself outside of your comfort zone and feel like you're contributing in a meaningful way. There's so many different organizations you can join or volunteer groups, get community cleanups. There's so many things that are a great way to meet folks that'll also be good for you. You'll get some sunshine on your face. You'll get out of the house. A lot of times we forget that we don't have to show up perfect. We can be imperfect. We don't have to stay the whole party. To your point, I love a leave early. Okay. I want to enjoy the experience, and I don't want to overstay to where the point where I'm exhausted on the way home and I feel like I have an emotional hangover. I have to listen to my body and know my limits and know that other people's are different and that's okay,

[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

and it's not that serious. Like, it doesn't mean anything, not at all about you.

[Tiffany Reiss]

It's just like different bandwidths. I'm curious if your understanding of friendship or the importance of belonging has changed over the course of your career, or if there's anything that you've learned in your research that some might find surprising.

[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

I've been so fortunate to sort of come up as a scientist in a time where the science of friendship is deepening and we're starting to recognize humans, listening to this will be like, yeah, everybody knows that. But basically the idea that not all friendships have benefits, not all friendships are uniformly positive. And that really was the story from the 1950s until, say the 90s, I think, when it was like, hey, just have a friend. People with friends do better in life. And that is still the case. It is still the case that if you look on average, what is the association between having at least one friend and general health outcomes? People with friends are a bit healthier, but that doesn't mean that every single friend or friendship is going to be good for mental health. And so one of the things that I've been so fascinated by are the parts of friendships that might feel really good but may not serve us in the long term, as well as things that people might do within friendships that serve a purpose, but again may not be serving them or their health in the long term. And I'll give you a couple of examples. One really fascinating construct in this literature that I've been fortunate enough to study with alongside some great colleagues is the idea of co rumination. And co rumination is a dyadic behavior, something you do with another person. And it's basically like talking about your problems a lot. And this is sometimes a characteristic of many friendships. It tends to be more commonly reported by female identified individuals, but men do it too. And it's this idea that when you get together with a friend, we're doing not just like regular self disclosure, but we're like really getting into it over and over and over again and maybe focusing a lot on how awful this thing is. And oh my gosh, this is a wonderful context for people to feel supported by their friends. You could probably imagine a conversation, maybe you've had a conversation like this with a friend where you're sharing about something that's really distressing. And you really get into it with a friend and they may be saying things like, oh my gosh, this is so awful. Oh, this one time something like that happened to me. Oh, what do you think's gonna happen next? Like a lot of focus on this. It is associated with closer friendships. Stronger friendships is another way to say that friendships characterized by co rumination have high, high levels of what we call positive friendship quality. So people report, my friendship's great. I feel really validated, really supportive. But this time with friends, that is spent talking about problems and all the bad things that could go wrong and why did this happen? And oh my gosh, it ends up predicting increases in depression and anxiety over time, even though people will say, it feels really good to talk to my friend in this way. And so it's been at these kind of trade off constructs that we find in psychology that I think are just fascinating. Right. It's kind of like drugs, you know, that's maybe an odd analogy, but.

[Tiffany Reiss]

No, but it like stimulates the moment. Yeah. I don't know if it would be what brain drug it would be, but it's giving you some sort of payoff essentially.

[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

Exactly. I hope I'm alive long enough to measure whether or not co rumination causes a dopamine hit, because I think it does.

[Tiffany Reiss]

It's almost like commiserating a little bit. Would that be. Is that too far?

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[Tiffany Reiss]

That must be why people love their co workers too. Like that really. Like when you like have that bond at work where it's just like the majority of it is just complaining about how much you hate it.

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Yes.

[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

And don't you feel better going to work because you know, you've got an eye, you've got somebody that gets you.

[Tiffany Reiss]

But is that actually helpful? No, probably not.

[Sleep Number Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

So the good news is you can get all the benefits of disclosure, the positive friendship quality, without the added non benefit of increased depression and anxiety symptoms with typical levels of self disclosure or sharing balance. Yeah, balance, exactly. I always tell people when they ask, oh, okay, so should we tell people not to co ruminate? I'm like, no, like, but think of it like cake. Cake, wonderful. But you don't want to eat it all day long every day you're going to feel terrible. So like what is that middle ground of venting and ragging and all of that with a friend and getting that support? But then can we disengage either to problem solve or put it on a shelf or distract ourselves with something that's actually going to help our health. I find that fascinating because I think it's really hard to move people away from a behavior that feels good in the moment but is not ultimately great for them long term. I see myself continuing to work in that area. Similarly, I also study interpersonal behaviors that people in high levels of distress will sometimes enact with their friends. This is slightly different in the sense that, take someone with depression, for example. There's some literature to suggest that individuals when they're depressed, of course they're trying to feel better most of the time, but the ways that they might go about it might be a bit aversive or off putting to their close friends, for example. We know that higher levels of depression are associated with a couple of conversational behaviors that friends don't tend to love, such as sort of excessively seeking reassurance from a friend. Like, friends are really good for providing reassurance several times, but after the 40th time of being asked, no, really, do you like me? Sometimes people can fatigue of that. And so there's some evidence to show that even though the depressed person is simply trying to assuage their distress by hearing from someone they care about, by definition that reassurance doesn't last. And so of course they're going to keep asking. And friends at some point can tire of that and start to reject that person. And we don't want that. Especially people in distress deserve friends. So some of my work focuses on helping people understand. All right, you're feeling really awful and you want to feel better. What are some ways that you alone can do that? What are some ways you that that you with friends can do that in a way that again, like you said, balances so that the friendship doesn't become all about that person's distress? That seems to be a real vulnerable point for folks with depression and anxiety in their friendships.

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[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

and stay asleep longer.

[Sleep Number Advertiser]

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[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

and stay asleep longer.

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[Tiffany Reiss]

As I mentioned earlier, you've done some specialized training in like couples and group therapy and group dynamics. I'm curious how someone feeling rejected from a group, whether that be peer group or classmates, co workers, how that can affect or have serious consequences for that person's emotional health and their sense of belonging. Because I imagine that would be much more significant. Not to compare, but like a friendship betrayal versus multiple friendship fallout, or feeling rejected from a group of people that you want so badly to belong to. Kids who are maybe bullied or treated more as outsiders, how can that impact their long term sense of belonging?

[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

So at the peer group level, a lot of scientists have studied sort of what happens, like you said, when the group of peers around a kid or around any given person, like their social network, they're sort of unilaterally rejected by everyone or by the group and, or like a group turns against them. We study this most often in children who attend school and we actually go into the schools and we might, I literally go into their class and ask everyone, all right, how do you feel about your peers? And this work has been going on for decades now. So we have a lot of trust in our findings. For kids who are actually rejected, meaning when given a list of classmates, people say, yeah, nobody likes this kid. That is not great. It is not great for that kid's adjustment. There's a really important caveat here. If they don't have at least one friend. So if kids have, you know, if people have just one close friend relationship, it seems to buffer them from the worst effects of group rejection. It's an awful thing for a group of kids to turn on another kid. Of course this happens. We know about relational aggression and social aggression that happens in schools. Middle school is a peak time for that. But if we're talking about a kindergarten class, a first grade class, a second grade class, where the whole class is saying, yeah, nobody likes this kid, the best outcomes for that child are gonna be when there's at least one friend, whether it's in school or outside of school, just one sort of safe harbor for that individual. We don't know actually from through the lens of science as much about group level rejection in adults, but I would say because adults have a greater capacity to choose their environment than children do. Many adults have volition to sort of change communities or even change jobs if it's bad. Of course, not everybody, but there's more flexibility in sort of moving to a different space where maybe that rejection is not felt as strongly or acceptance is more possible. I do want to note though, a really important kind of new. I don't know that the idea is new, but the studies on it are newer. It hasn't really been empirically evaluated rigorously. It's the idea of perceived rejection. And it is absolutely the case that when any human being is feeling low or they've had a bad social experience, they are likely to worry or maybe even expect or go so far as to perceive that other people don't like them. And they might believe that a lot or a little. But there's emerging evidence to suggest that a lot of folks in distress, depressed folks, maybe even anxious folks, are the populations that have been studied mostly if they perceive themselves to be rejected. That perception doesn't always match up with what other people are actually saying. So for instance, for a long time we thought, oh, depressed people have worse friendships. But it was because we were only asking the depressed person about how their friendship is going. And so it became the empirical question, okay, well, what does the friend say? And we've actually done a couple of these studies in my lab where we take teenagers and we find that kids, adolescents, young adults with higher levels of distress, tend to report that their relationships are more negative. But when we ask, we actually bring their best friend into the lab with them and then we ask their friend, hey, how's the friendship going? We do not see that connection between distress and poorer functioning friendships. So in effect, what that means is people who are already feeling badly are likely to extrapolate that kind of negative perception and filter to their relationships, even when the relationship may be more objectively okay. Where that becomes really important is when we do studies of this where we pair strangers together and we let them interact and develop an initial connection. We ask both parties, we say, hey, would you like to hang out with this person in the future? How do you think the conversation went? Did you like them? Et cetera, et cetera. When non depressed people answer those questions about a depressed interaction partner, they're like, yeah, I like them. I like them just fine. But the depressed person in that pair will tell us, I don't think my partner likes me at all. I don't think I want to hang out with them. So it becomes this kind of self fulfilling prophecy, perhaps where if people aren't feeling that great and they think about how their relationships are going, they might perceive that other people don't like them. But that might not be the case. And of course we all know how self fulfilling prophecies go. If we believe other people don't like us, then we'll act like they don't like us. Maybe remove ourselves from opportunities to interact or avoid people. And then over time people might actually be like, yeah, I don't know what happened with that person. That was kind of weird. I wanted to hang out but they ghosted me. So I think that will be an important thing to explore. How much of rejection is actual and how much rejection is perception? Because unfortunately we're finding that perception can become reality, particularly for people in high distress.

[Tiffany Reiss]

That's so interesting. And what's so weird is I feel like I'm the exact opposite. I want to be friends with everybody and I assume everybody wants to be friends, wants to be friends with me. And I am devastated when that's not true. And I'm like shocked. I'm like, what did I do? I try way too hard. Might be a neurodivergent thing, but I've come to realize I also can't expect other people to be as outgoing as I am. To your point, it might not be about them rejecting me or not liking me. It could totally just be that they don't feel super comfortable socializing and that is okay.

[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

What is so beautiful about your approach is that you're putting your authentic self out there. And yes, it does hurt when not every single person wants to be our friend. But at least you're giving yourself that opportunity, right? You're putting yourself out there and allowing for the possibility of a connection. Whereas if you didn't have that orientation and you are convinced that no one would like you, you are not going to be running into a group of strangers being like, hey, want to be friends?

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Right?

[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

You know, you're going to sort of censor yourself, you're going to withhold, you're going to avoid. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take, right? So it does hurt.

[Tiffany Reiss]

Most of the time it works out. I've learned not to take it as personally. Oh, I love that. I love that.

[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

That's so. It's beautiful in the time of hyper connectivity and social disconnection. And I think it's refreshing that people want that connection. And so I'm guessing you find your people that way, which is really cool.

[Tiffany Reiss]

It's a fun adventure. My Co producer Amy. She's also my best friend and we have the pleasure of working together, so we spend a lot of time together. But, like, she's even more social than I am and I'm always shocked at how even more outgoing she is. And so I bet we make a lot of people like, who are these women? We're just like two golden retrievers just trying to be friends with everybody, everybody. So we are definitely going to link to your website and all the places people can read your work. So listeners definitely check the episode notes. You'll find all the beautiful links there. We cannot thank you enough for being willing to come on the show and share your expertise with us. We are so, so grateful and I think listeners are really going to enjoy this episode. I think friendship is something that is important to all of us and, and you've made so many amazing points and I learned a lot. So thank you. Thank you so much.

[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

Oh, well, thank you, Tiffany. I'm glad you're getting the word out and it's just great to be able to talk about the importance of human connection in this time. Of all the things.

[Tiffany Reiss]

Thank you endlessly to every Survivor guest and expert who has contributed to our community. We are eternally grateful for your bravery, energy and time. Something Was Wrong is a broken Cycle Media production created and produced by Tiffany Reiss. Thank you to our incredible team, associate producer Amy B. Chesler, audio engineer Becca High and social media marketing manager Lauren Barkman. Special thanks to Sarah Stewart for our amazing Season 26 artwork, Stephen Wack for add audio editing and our partners at AudioBoom. If you love Something was Wrong and you want to help, support the show and listen ad free. Become a community contributor on Apple podcasts or purchase a sticker from our sticker [e-mail] or tell everyone you know, like your neighbor, sister, brother, yoga instructor, florist, telemarketer, reiki healer, stylist, trainer, mentor, parents, cousins, aunties, unks, coaches, librarians, matcha artist, dance instructor, balloon artist, wedding planner, bridesmaids, bank teller, driver, dog groomer, dentist, orthodontist, esthetician, tattoo artist, house cleaner, accountant, tax preparer, insurance agent, mail carrier, crossing guard, barista, beekeeper, notary, public lifeguard, camp counselor, flight attendant, dog walker, pet sitter, pilates instructor, spin instructor, tarot reader, acupuncturist, landscaper, electrician, plumber, contractor, real estate agent, mortgage broker, optometrist, veterinarian, park ranger, farmer's market vendor, little league coach, PTA president, school librarian, substitute teacher, driving instructor, wedding officiant, travel agent, locksmith, Ferris wheel operator, hot air balloon pilot, llama, farmer, falconer, puppeteer, professional mermaid. Or that one friend who's somehow just in everyone's business. If you know, you know. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, stay safe. Friends.

[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

Hi friends, this is Amy B. Chesler, and if you've been loving listening to Something Was Wrong, you'll definitely want to check out Broken Cycle Media's sister podcast, what Came Next? With more than 170 episodes available, the series explores what happens after survivors share their stor stories publicly diving into healing,

[Tiffany Reiss]

justice, advocacy, and the lasting impact of

[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

trauma and media exposure. Co created and co produced by Tiffany Reiss, the show gives survivors a platform

[Tiffany Reiss]

to discuss not just what happened, but

[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

where life led them next.

[Tiffany Reiss]

Follow and listen to what Came Next.

[Dr. Rebecca Schwartz Mehta]

Wherever you get your podcasts.