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Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, Dr. Joy Hardin Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more or to find a therapist in your area, visit our website@therapyforblackgirls.com while I hope you love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with a licensed mental health professional.

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Hey y', all, thanks so much for joining me for session 447 of the therapy for Black Girls Podcast. We'll get right into our conversation after word from our sponsors. This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human I'm Dr. Joy from the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast. Ever been at the pharmacy counter and your mind goes blank when the pharmacist asks any questions? That's why you need to listen to beyond the Script from CBS Pharmacy and iHeartMedia. Hosted by Dr. Jake Goodman, this podcast answers the questions you wish you'd asked, like which meds may not work well together, what vaccines you might need before a trip, and even the ones you were too embarrassed to say out loud. Listen to beyond the script on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Today I wanted to share some thoughts about investing in your future while showing up for your present needs. Most of us play a lot of roles in life partner, employee, caregiver. But many of us also think about another role that could take our lives to where we want it to be. Degree holder. That's where National University comes in. They've been busy since 1971 creating more ways for you to work earning a degree into your busy life. NU confers more graduate degrees to diverse populations than any other institution in the country, with more than half being earned by women. With flexible online formats, four and eight week courses, monthly class starts, and year round enrollment. NU is an accredited nonprofit university that makes higher education possible and achievable for busy working adults. With over 150 different degrees, credentials and certificates to choose from, they have a program that fits your career goals too. Learn more today at nu.edu. Friendships are a lifeline for us. Friends keep our secrets. They celebrate our wins and hold us up during the difficult times. So when a friendship ends for whatever reason, there's an acute grief associated with no longer having this lifeline. And sadly, this grief is often misunderstood and minimized. Today, I'm sharing some thoughts on why friendship breakups are so difficult to navigate and what kind of support you may need to get through one, and how you might know if it's time for a friendship to end. When we were planning out the episodes for this year's January Jumpstart series, we knew we wanted to include an episode on friendship breakups because there aren't enough spaces that talk about the ways you change after a friendship ends, about the grief you carry, the stories and laughs that you feel like no longer have a place to live. And so our hope is that this episode gives you a place to land, a place where your grief can be seen and honored. Let's start by digging more into the grief associated with the ending of a friendship. And I actually talk about this quite a bit in my book, Sisterhood Heals. The grief associated with something like a friendship breakup or the loss of a job. These things fall into the category of what we call disenfranchised grief. This is grief that is the result of experiences that fall outside of what people typically think should be grieved. For example, when a loved one dies, there's typically a huge outpouring of support. There are rituals that are followed. People show up with food and other things to comfort you. You often get time off from work. There's a very clear understanding that this is an upsetting experience and that, of course, you should be tended to gently. With disenfranchised grief, those same rituals don't often exist, and so it's not uncommon that you will hear people say things like, oh, she wasn't a good friend to you anyway, or, oh, don't worry about it, you have plenty of other friends. Well, even if those things are true, it doesn't actually help the person who is currently feeling devastated that they no longer have the same connection they once did to somebody who's been very important in their lives. So the grief related to friendship breakups can be more intense because it's not honored in the same ways. And others don't always hold space for the sadness and the grief that is actually associated with losing a friend. The grief of friendship loss is also incredibly painful because we often create entire worlds with our friends, their shared history, a shared language, inside jokes, et cetera. Our friends are often our chosen family. They extend the ones that were created in our families of origin and even, in some cases, replace them. Friendships are not placeholders or substitutions for something else. They are central and relevant relationships with people who we choose and who choose us. So when they end, where do all of those memories and stories go? Who else will get those jokes. Losing this kind of connection is painful and can often lead to a real crisis in belonging, identity, and worth. The ending of a friendship also poses challenges like what happens with mutual friends. Do you still visit the same places that y' all went to together? Do you remove any evidence of them from your TikTok? Do you have to share this information with your online platforms? In terms of mutual friends, I think it's good to have a conversation with them about what you'd like to happen. Move forward. If you prefer not to be invited to anything with the former friend anymore, or at least for the time being, it's okay to say that if you prefer they not share updates about you with them and vice versa, it's also okay to say that. And it's also okay to expect and acknowledge that your feelings may change. How you feel one month after the breakup may be completely different than how you feel two years after the breakup. And I think it's a good rule of thumb for navigating any of these experiences post breakup to choose what feels right to you and honors your feelings in that moment, and to stay open to the idea that things will likely shift One of the things that often comes up in conversation about friendship breakups is is how do you know when to end things with a friend. And since it's the beginning of a new year and you may be in the process of evaluating your relationships, let's get into a little bit of that. It would be impossible to go through all the scenarios that might result in you deciding to end a friendship, but generally, I think experiences where you feel like your needs are not being met consistently and repeatedly, even after you've been clear in asking, is a red flag when you are being disrespected, taunted, and belittled. That is a red flag. When trust is violated and the violation is too large for you to overcome, this is likely an indication that it may be best to walk away. It's important to note here that friendships don't always end because some big bad thing happened. Sometimes we just grow apart. We just move in different directions. This doesn't mean that it hurts any less to lose that connection, but I do think it's an important caveat because I think many of us hold on to connections where we are not being honored and our needs are not being met simply because nothing awful has happened. And I want you to know that it is okay to walk away simply because you no longer feel like something is a good fit for you. And I wonder if we can actually hold space for that. The ways that we sometimes just grow apart. No one has to be the villain. There is no love lost. We are simply in different places that may no longer intersect. Some signs that a relationship actually may be worth repairing are one if sincere apologies are offered for any wrongdoing, or if the rupture is caused by a life transition, something like a new child, a move, a new job. These kinds of things often uproot our sense of normalcy in a way that's really upsetting, but it can also be really joyous. And so I think we get confused and don't always have the words and the language to talk about how we're feeling in these moments. And so we don't know how to say I miss you, even though I know baby needs all of your attention right now. I think that those kinds of ruptures can be repaired and friendships can actually be stronger on the other side if all parties are committed to actually hearing each other. More from our conversation after the break. I'm Dr. Joy from the Therapy for Black Girls podcast. Ever been at the pharmacy counter and the pharmacist asks, do you have any questions? And suddenly your mind goes blank? That's exactly why you need to listen to beyond the Script from CVS Pharmacy and iHeartMedia. Hosted by Dr. Jake Goodman, a board certified psychiatrist and health educator, this show takes you behind the counter to answer the questions you wish you'd asked, like which medications might not mix well, what vaccines you should consider before a big trip, and even those questions you were too embarrassed to say out loud. Each episode busts myths, decodes health trends, and gives you real, trustworthy advice from the experts you see most your neighborhood CVS pharmacists. No white coats, no lectures. Just real talk, real answers, and maybe a few laughs. Listen to beyond the script on the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts are wherever you get your podcasts. Many of us play lots of different roles in life partner, employee, caregiver. And many of us also think about another role that could take our life where we want it to be. Degree holder. That's where National University comes in. They've been busy since 1971 creating more ways for you to work, earning a degree into your hectic life. NU confers more graduate degrees to diverse populations than any other institution in the country, with more than half being earned by women. With flexible online formats, NU makes higher education possible and achievable for busy working adults. Learn more today at nu.edu. Now that we've talked about the grief related to Friendship breakups and how to know if you need to end one we also have to take a very close and long look at ourselves in relationships and how our own stuff shows up in in our friendships. Are we someone who gives and gives without ever asking for support and then becomes resentful? Are we someone who gets jealous if a friend makes a new friend and now we don't feel like there's any longer a place for us? Are we someone who makes romantic love central in our lives, leaving our girls to feel left out and unimportant? Because relationships involve multiple people when they end, it's important to look at what role we played in the relationship and how we might want to show up differently in the future, if at all. Not as a way of shaming ourselves or placing blame, but as an honest assessment of who we were in that relationship. There are things about ourselves that we may not even know about ourselves until it is revealed in the confines of a relationship. Maybe we did way too much sacrificing, or maybe we struggled to assert ourselves and ask for what we needed. Maybe we took up too much space and didn't show up in the ways we had hoped we would. Maybe we've been taught that conflict is a dirty word and that at the first sign of a disagreement we have to get out. All of this is valuable information to know about ourselves that can actually help inform how we show up in relationships in the future. So what happens next? The friendship has ended, and maybe you still feel conflicted because you don't know exactly why it ended. This is often difficult because our mind wants to make sense of things A, B, C so it may feel difficult to move on without this closure. But the truth is that oftentimes closure is something we have to give ourselves. That means crying it out when you feel like you need to, leaning on supportive people who don't make you feel silly about the friendship breakup. Maybe that's other friends. Maybe it's a therapist, but it needs to be someone. Healing is not meant to happen alone. Ask for the support that you so readily offer to other people, and when you're ready, there will be new friends. Much like with a romantic breakup, in the thick of it you can't imagine you'll ever love again. But you do, and you will. It's important to know that all the new people who come into your life won't necessarily hurt you or disappoint you, and that even if that next friend is not your new bff, you have the resources and support to deal with disappointment and rejection. You're now armed with new information about who you are, about what you desire in a friend, and about what you would like friendship to feel like, as painful as it is. And you may not be here yet, there are new people to choose and new people who will choose you. If you're currently experiencing the loss of a friendship, I want you to know that you are not alone and that the grief you're feeling is valid. Something that may help is taking some time to write a letter to this former friend sharing all the things you feel like have been left unsaid. What apologies do you want to offer? What apologies do you feel like you are actually owed? In what ways do you feel like you failed to show up? In what ways could they have showed up more? What lingering questions do you have? What would you want to say or know if you could have one final conversation with this person? Now, this is not a letter that you will send. This is simply an exercise for you to get clearer on on what you're actually holding. One thing that I wish that more people understood about friendship breakups is that their grief is very real and that tenderness and gentleness go a very long way. A green flag in relationships are friends who are just as excited, or maybe even more excited about your accomplishments and achievements as you are. Something to release this year to make space for better relationships is our reluctance to ask for help. If you're in the middle of a friendship breakup right now, I want you to cry as long as you need to, but also know that you will be okay and that you have not yet met all the people who will love you. In one word, my 2026 metamorphosis is ease to support my metamorphosis this year I am more fiercely protecting my time. If you find yourself wading through the waters of a friendship breakup, I hope this has been helpful to you. If you're looking for support, we love to have you join us in our Patreon for our Sunday night check in, where we'll be walking through the pages of our Friendship Breakup Companion Guide designed to help you process the grief of the breakup. You can join us at community.therapy for black girls.com if you have additional questions you'd like to have answered. After you listen to the episode or have ideas for another topic you'd like to hear discussed, send us a message at therapyforblackgirls.com mailbox or leave us a voice message at Memo FM therapyforblackgirls this episode was produced by Elise Ellis Inde Chubu and Tyre Rush. Editing was done by Dennison Bradford. Thank y' all so much for joining me again this week. I look forward to continuing this conversation with you all real soon. Take good care. Many of us play lots of different roles in life partner, employee, caregiver. And many of us also think about another role that could take our life where we want it to be. Degree Holder. That's where National University comes in. They've been busy since 1971 creating more ways for you to work earning a degree into your hectic life. NU confers more graduate degrees to diverse populations than any other institution in the country, with more than half being earned by women. With flexible online formats, NU makes higher education possible and achievable for busy working adults. Learn more today at nu.edu. this is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.