Almost Everyone Has Experienced Friendship Break-Up (Twice!) with Meenadchi

Ninety-four percent of people have experienced more than one friendship break-up.

Let that sink in. Nearly EVERYONE listening has been through this heartbreak multiple times – and yet, we barely even talk about it as a society! 

This statistic comes from a survey conducted by today’s guest, Meenadchi, a somatic healing practitioner, communications expert, author of Decolonization Non-Violent Communication, and TEDx Talk presenter about her own friendship break-up.

This is a conversation about the losses we don't have scripts for and why that makes the healing so much harder. We share deeply about our own experiences, we talk about Meenadchi’s research, and we dive into the grief of friendship break-ups.

I hope this conversation gives you some of what I felt during this conversation – that you are not alone in this experience. The pain of friendship break-ups is real. Give yourself the space you need to grieve.

In this episode you’ll hear about:

• Meenadchi’s upbringing in a Sri Lankan immigrant community, where friendships are highly valued
• Her long-term friendship that ended at age 36 and her subsequent fascination with friendship breakups
• The vulnerability and intimacy shared in childhood friendships and the impact of losing such relationships
• The concept of a "line in the sand" for setting boundaries and moving forward in relationships; when do boundaries work, and when can friendships be repaired?
• The importance of community interconnectedness in healing from friendship breakups (plus, healing strategies, from letter-writing to the internet)

Resources & Links

Visit Meenadchi’s website, see her TEDx Talk, and follow her on Instagram.

In this episode I mentioned All About Love by Bell Hooks.

Like what you hear? Visit my website, leave me a voicemail, and follow me on Instagram and TikTok!

Want to take this conversation a step further? Send this episode to a friend. Tell them you found it interesting and use what we just talked about as a conversation starter the next time you and your friend hang out!

This episode is sponsored by Slowly, a digital pen pal app used by over 10 million people worldwide. If you’ve been looking for a low-pressure way to connect with someone completely outside your normal friendship circle, this is it. Exchange letters at your own pace, no small talk panic required.

Download Slowly free and get 30% off Slowly Plus using my link: https://open.slowly.app/miXL/l8ei5iw6

WANT MORE?

My book, Are We Friends Yet? hits shelves June 16. Get on the waitlist for pre-order bonuses + a first look.

Dive into The Connection Reset. A 10-day private podcast to help you see the abundance of connection that already exists in your day-to-day (Yes. Really. I promise you have more than you realize). Start today. 

Transcript

Podcast Intro/Outro: 0:00

All right, gang. Here's to nights that turn into mornings and friends that turn into family. Cheers. Hello, hello, and welcome to the Friendship IRL podcast. I'm your host, Alex Alexander. Each week we talk about what is working(and what is not) in our friendships, community and connections. Have you ever wished you could sit down and have a conversation about what is really going on in your friendships? Well, you found your people. Join us as we dive into real life stories and explore new ways to approach these connections. Together, we're reimagining the rules of friendship

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 0:58

94% of people have experienced more than one friendship breakup. Let that sink in for a moment. Nearly everyone listening has been through this heartbreak multiple times, yet we barely talk about it as a society. That statistic comes from a small but powerful survey I'm discussing today with Meenadchi, a somatic healing practitioner and communications expert whose work centers social change and embodied transformation using Family Constellation therapy and non-violent communication with a decolonial and trauma-informed lens. Meenadchi supports individuals and change makers heal how we speak to ourselves, each other and the universe. Meenadchi holds a clinical license in occupational therapy and has over 10 years of experience in trauma services. She's the author of Decolonizing Nonviolent Communication and gave a TEDx talk called my friend broke up with me. Here's what I learned at TEDx Delthorne, women in 2024 that TEDx talk came after Meenadchi, own devastating experience losing a 26 year friendship, when her best friend officially broke up with her, after her own friendship breakup and her TEDx talk, she decided to reach out to her own mailing list to discuss friendship breakups, and I'm not surprised that she got an outpouring of responses. 98 people shared their stories. The survey we are discussing today isn't a formal clinical study, but in my opinion, it doesn't need to be in order to be valuable, we need to be talking about friendship breakups more and if that means taking small surveys and anonymizing the stories to do so and to make someone today who is listening to this episode feel less alone in their experience, if Even just one person feels less alone than in my mind, that survey is valuable today, menache and I share deeply about our own experiences, mixed with stats and stories from her survey, we dive into the grief that persists years later, why 70% of people Experience a dip in self worth after a friendship breakup, the difference between friendship pauses and breakups and how community interconnectedness can either help repair or make things more complicated. This is a conversation about the losses we don't have scripts for and why that makes the healing so much harder.

Alex Alexander: 3:43

Meenadchi, thank you so much for being here today.

Meenadchi: 3:48

Thank you for having me. Alex.

Alex Alexander: 3:50

yeah, you know, I get a lot of comments when I record about my pauses, and I want you to know that you actually we're already gonna have a good time. You make me take more deep breaths than anyone I've ever realized in my life. And I love it. It's gonna be the most like relaxing episode for anybody to listen to. I think ever you just have such a presence, and I think people can hear that,

Meenadchi: 4:23

one, that feels really good to hear feels really sweet and affirming. And two, it's actually also a growing edge for me. I think that I have been someone who wants to fill the silence, who wants to fill the gaps, and it feels good to practice not doing that.

Alex Alexander: 4:46

What a beautiful thought that is for everyone. Well, I am really excited about today's episode, which is kind of funny, because this is a hard topic for a lot of people. Cool. So to say that I'm thrilled that you are here to talk about friendship breakups is probably not what most people are thinking about. But can we talk a little bit about what led you to being so interested in friendship breakups?

Meenadchi: 5:16

So I am Sri Lankan Tamil. I grew up in California, was part of the immigrant community. And one immigrant communities survive based on friendship. It's sort of like, you know, somebody new comes, and it's like, Oh, you, you know you're, you are my mother's neighbors, brothers, second grade teacher, son in law, like, I'll help you. You know what I mean? That's what that's how immigrant communities are with each other. And I really saw my parents live in that quality of love and care for people. And I saw them, you know, get excited to see reconnect with friends they hadn't seen for, you know, 20-30, years and all these kinds of things. And so I grew up both with the understanding that friendships are as important as any other kind of relationship. They are as important as your relationship with your spouse, with whomever, whatever, like, friendships are bread and butter for healthy community. And I also grew up with the assumption that if we were friends, we were going to be friends for life, because that's how I thought I saw my parents do it right. As I grew up, I learned that that wasn't the case, right? And there's things are a lot more complicated in community, but I had the assumption that if we were friends, we were going to be with each other for life, and I had met my best friend when we were 10 years old, and there were cracks showing in our relationship. When we were 30, we both were going through our Saturn's return, and I think we approached it differently. And then when we were 36 she officially broke up with me, and I just was like, in a state of shock, of like, how could this be? Like, we were going to be with each other forever? And so then I just really became fascinated with it. And then a couple years ago, I was invited to do a TEDx. Everybody thought I was going to do it based on something about my work. And I was like, No, I'm just gonna talk about how my best friend broke my heart. That's the thing I'm most hungry. You know? It was really like a healing I was, I was over a certain edge, right? I was like, at an at a place where, like, I can talk about this more.

Alex Alexander: 7:35

Well, 26 years, yeah, 26 years. That is such a long relationship, you know, out of any relationship, if that was a romantic relationship, people would be, you know, putting this on the front page of the newspaper type thing like 26 years and so many formative years to so many years where the vulnerability and the intimacy, I think about this, a lot of being kids like No wonder we're so attached to our childhood friends, because they watched us mess up. They watched us get in trouble from our parents. They watched us get in trouble from our community members and be told you can't do that. And you're like, wait, but you're not my parent, right? They watched you, I don't know, back your car into a pole. I'm trying to think of things my friends did the first time we went skinny dipping,

Meenadchi: 8:35

like it's like all the things,

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 8:38

and that is so much vulnerability that sometimes is hard to match as adults, because we're way more aware. We don't make as many mistakes, we don't get corrected as often. So I think that's just an added layer here, like, Wow, what a friendship to lose.

Meenadchi: 9:02

Yeah.

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 9:04

Was it? I mean, you said you kind of felt like things were shifting for a while, but when you say she broke up with you, and we don't need all the details, but I am curious, was it like an actual conversation of we're done?

Meenadchi: 9:20

I sent her a text message. I remember the day I sent her the text message. She sent her a text message in the morning that said, Are we ever going to be best friends again? She waited 12 hours, and she sent an incredibly thoughtful text message back, and she said, I can't remember exactly what it was. It was something along the lines of, like, you know, we have been best friends. We're not now. I don't know what will be in the future. Even in my shock, I remember understanding that it was a very thoughtful message, and that was sort of it.

Alex Alexander: 9:53

Well, I'm holding space for you.

Meenadchi: 9:56

Thank you.

Alex Alexander: 9:57

Yeah, it gives me like a body reaction. It didn't even happen to me. But I think that's because we can all imagine, as we're going to talk about in this episode our own right. I know what that feels like like, deep in my bones, I know what that feels like to realize that this friendship you thought you had envisioned that you would maybe know their children, or attend their 50th birthday party, or take all these trips together, or meet up and try and live near each other when you're old, and wander around all these things just come crashing down. This whole vision you had is gone, and there's a hole in your day to day, because I also felt that when it happened to me. So that's all to say. I think hearing anybody's friendship breakup story gives me like I can feel it down the back of my neck and down the back of my arms, this like tingly feeling. And I think it's just because I remember, because so many of us have experienced this, and we just aren't talking about it enough. Yeah. So then, after the friendship breakup, after the TED Talk, at what point did you decide to do this friendship breakup study that we're going to talk about today?

Meenadchi: 12:56

I think it was probably about six months after the TED talk, I think at that point, I finally felt ready, and I, you know, as a facilitator who's often working with things in the world of trauma, it's inevitable that that pieces of my work are informed by my own lived experience in my personal history, and I do my best to only facilitate around content that I can hold without bringing my own baggage in. And so probably about six months after that, I felt ready to just approach this with like a lens of like real inquiry and curiosity, as opposed to like looking for my own salvation, and so I sent out a friendship like a survey to my mailing list, asking for people's experiences on friend breakups. And I received such an overwhelming like 98 people responded, and the data and the information they provided was such a gift. It was the people were so generous with their stories, and it was also incredibly healing to read, to just really listen, because again, kind of as you've touched on, the more we realize that we're not alone in this, the easier it is to have some both perspective and responsibility as we look back on what we would have done differently.

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 14:21

Yeah, I have one episode about a friendship breakup, Episode 25 for anybody who's listening. And the comments I usually get when somebody listens to that like the messages I receive are Wow, I feel so seen I thought I was alone. And the thing is, it's just one, right? It's just one, well, it's kind of two, because it's patrice's story and my story, but it's not 98 stories, but we just aren't talking about friendship breakups enough. And I don't I mean, yes, it's out there. I mean, honestly, the the urge to break up with your friends, like that societal narrative is out there. That message is being pushed. You know, if things aren't right, just end it. That piece is out there. What we don't have is then, what is happening after. And this the stories of that. And I think so many people feel alone, and it sounds like if you went 98 responses, you are having a similar experience to what I have, which is that I like to say that my email inbox and my DM inbox is like a it's like a confessional. It's like a trap shut. You know, anything that goes in there goes to me, I'm the only one that sees it, and it stays there. But people are dying to tell these stories, which is why I'm not shocked at all that you got 98 responses, because people want to hear more than just like it ended, move on. There's so many emotions that happen after that text message you received. Yeah, yeah, holding it is a lot more deep breaths for both of us. So the study itself. Yourself. Do you have any idea what the age range kind of of the participants was? Was it?

Meenadchi: 16:23

No, you know, not like a clinical researcher. And I wasn't thinking about that, right? So I didn't gather the sort of demographic data I know that my people, it's probably Fem of center, and my guess is that the age range is probably within the sort of like 25 - 55 range is probably the majority, but that's just a guess

Alex Alexander: 16:50

that's still a pretty broad range of people. Yeah, so interesting. And then for the study itself, was it only people that had been broken up with, or were there also people who had ended friendships? Was it a mix of everyone?

Meenadchi: 17:12

Yeah, it was a mix. So one of the questions I asked is, What roles have you played in a friend breakup and 63% I've been on both sides of it. 12% said that they were the ones who broke up with somebody. 14% said that a friend broke up with them, and 10% said the breakup was mutual.

Alex Alexander: 17:34

63% on both sides, I just sit with that number, because as someone who's been broken up with I fight pretty hard to not break up with anybody.

Meenadchi: 17:48

Are you a cancer? What's your sign? Alex,

Alex Alexander: 17:51

I am a cusp. I am a Gemini, cancer, cusp.

Meenadchi: 17:57

That's really sweet.

Alex Alexander: 18:02

Is that the answer? Yes, my birthday is June 20. I am right on the cusp. So yeah, this tracks, although I generally feel like I identify more with the Gemini side of me, but there are these moments where, yeah, cancer, the cancer tracks. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, that's why I started this work, right? Is, I do think that societally, we're quick to cut people off. And sometimes that's needed, sorry, sometimes that is needed. I always like to make that caveat, but I also think sometimes, right, one hard conversation could save a friendship, or a friendship may shift. It might become a simpler friendship, and maybe not all is encompassing, and that could save the relationship. It could become what I call like a more historic friendship, where maybe you don't see that person as often. Maybe they could become someone you see once, twice, three times a year, and when you are together, you're probably more focused on kind of your history and your memories, and like, really appreciating that piece, like the fact that maybe they knew you when you were 10, and that that is valuable too, right? All these things have a space in what I call your wheel of connection. But people got to do what they got to do if you got to break up. But after being broken up with I mean, I was up. If people want the full story, go listen episode 25 like, I basically thought about this friendship breakup more nights than not like in the middle of the night for almost two years. So I guess that's where I'm coming from. The cancer is coming out.

Meenadchi: 19:47

Two things I'll share to this thought, maybe three things. One is that I think that sometimes friendship breakups happen during moments of intensity. I can think of, like many of the stories that I read that were like, you know, like she didn't show up for me when my mom was dying or something, you know what I mean, like people going through a really particular life thing that we don't always feel equipped or know how to handle. I know that in my case, I was going through a sort of personal transformation, and there were some intense life things happening, and my best friend just didn't sign up for some of that stuff. You know what I mean? Like, she just didn't want to. And like, reflection, one of the things I think about is, like, I sort of just wish I hadn't put some of that intensity on her

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 20:36

Real talk. This episode had some serious technical difficulties, and the call dropped twice, including right here. So I'm going to use this moment to jump in, because I've been sitting over here this whole time just holding on tight to this thought like literally squirming in my chair because I need to talk about it earlier in this episode, Meenadchi mentioned something subtle, that she thought her parents had made friends and kept them for life, only to realize later that wasn't the case with every friend. She assumed that every friend she made would be a friend for life. And I want you to take a moment and analyze your own. Beliefs about this, what examples Did you see growing up? Did you witness parents, grandparents or family members going through conflict and repair with friends, or did they keep that drama out of your view? Do you know of any friends your parents or other adults had lost touch with for me, I remember looking at my parents wedding album, I was pretty young, I don't know, seven, eight, and asking my mom, who's this? When I pointed at her maid of honor, I was so confused why it wasn't my mom's best friend that I knew my aunt Leal, but my mom and the woman standing next to her in her wedding photos had had a falling out, and that's all my mom really told me. I never met this woman. I don't know much about her, and I never heard about what happened or if they had tried to repair. In fact, I don't really know about their friendship, like what made them close enough friends for my mom to ask her to stand up there on our wedding day. So on some level, I did know that friendships weren't always permanent, but that's about it, no deeper lessons, no longer conversations. Here's what I'm getting at friendship breakups are hard no matter what, but I think that there is an added layer of grief, if we're also grieving our beliefs about how friendship is supposed to work, if suddenly you're realizing that friendship isn't a friend necessarily forever, that just adds to the sting. So maybe take some more time after this episode ends, to really think about this, because it's probably going to take more than this little narration to reflect on it. But what are some of your beliefs about friendships and how they last? About repair and conflict.

Meenadchi: 23:12

The things I was sharing about this idea about like letting friendships go or not letting them go type of thing. One is that I think a lot of friendship breakups happen during moments of intensity where we just were not equipped. People don't always know how to respond to a situation and it hurts. And I think in my case, I was going through some periods of intensity, and in retrospect, I wish I hadn't asked my best friend to, like, navigate them with me. You know what I mean, like that wasn't a role she needed to play that. Like that wasn't what she signed up for. I wish I hadn't, like, kind of pushed her in that way. And the other thing, so in spite of the heartbreak that I have experienced with friend breakups, I also have a group of friends that are about, like, you know, maybe six of us, ish, you know, 16, if you count our parents, all mixed in, you know, who were part of the Tamil immigrant community that I grew up with. And we're still together. But the reason we're still together is because our friendships are interwoven. I can think of like a couple friends within that group that I've had some type of rupture with, but because there are always, at any given point in time, like three mutuals who love us. You know what I mean? I'm always going to see them at weddings. I'm always going to I'm, you know, we're never not going to be connected. That's what's made repair possible, and most of us, this is actually a really sad thing. I'm going to say out loud for the first time, I have a friend who I really care about, who they've struggled with suicidal ideation for a long time, and I can't get a hold of them, and I don't know anybody in their family, so there's no way to like, check or to know, and I think for a lot of us, these are the friendships we have where it's just the one thread. And so when rupture happens, there's not enough of a safety net to just hold the relationship while repair happens, because sometimes repair just happens when you're all out getting ice cream and maybe you're on one end of the counter. You know what I mean? Like, that's repair.

Alex Alexander: 25:27

Sorry, we're sitting in you're wiping your tears away. I'm trying to hold back my tears because remember, before we recorded, I'm gonna, I'm gonna release this. I'm gonna, I'm not deleting what I'm about to say, when you said, Life is lifeing. I just lost somebody to suicide recently, and that is, that is okay, it's okay. But I'm sending all the love, and I hope you can get a hold of that person

Meenadchi: 25:52

and sending all the love to you,

Alex Alexander: 25:55

who those deep breaths, you know, the interwovenness is so real it's not talked about enough. It makes it harder. That's what I'll say, because I've never thought about that. But you are spot on. You are absolutely correct on the interwovenness. Yeah, and I see that in repair with a bunch of friends. You know, I have this friend group that I talk about all the time, and it's probably, I mean, gosh, with partners, this isn't even including kids. There's probably 30 of us. Like, I'm looking at a photo over here. I love it. There's 19 people in that photo, and some people are missing. And again, that doesn't include children and the friend breakup I had, she was a part of that group. Now, the interesting thing is, she broke up with everybody, every single I had a guest person, yeah, like there's one person in that photo that I can think of, I guess two people, a couple that she is still close with. And I'm I love that for her, honestly, I want her to have people, because I think she needs that. But you are so right in that like somebody would have to be at the point where they cut off everyone and kind of start a new life with a whole new community and a whole new set of people, in some sense, if there's that interwoven connectedness, I mean, anybody I think who listens to this podcast wants that deeper community like this is even more of a reason to introduce your people to each other, let them develop their own friendships, connect them together. It's all going to make you feel more supported, and it's going to give more incentive to do the work to stay together. Yeah, so let's talk about some other facts from your study. You said that 94% of people have experienced more than one friendship breakup, and I am not surprised. Did you get this sense? I guess maybe this is an overall question. Were a lot of these friendship breakups? Maybe like what I would call present friends, like closer friends, best friends, or were a lot of them maybe your gym friend or your work friend, or any sense of like, how close people were in these friendship breakups?

Meenadchi: 28:45

No, yeah, because of the story, there were some kind of like, you know, open questions that I asked, and from the stories that people shared, I really got the sense that a lot of these were really intimate, meaningful relationships,

Alex Alexander: 29:01

to have lost more than one, it just breaks my heart for people once is enough to have to go through that heartbreak to do it again and again. The next stat we have here is about when people's first friendship breakup was, and I guess actually, if we do think of it this way, then there are probably other friendship breakups I've had when I was younger that I maybe just wasn't even thinking about.

Meenadchi: 29:32

So the specific question I asked was, how old were you when you experienced the first friend breakup that deeply impacted you?

Alex Alexander: 29:42

Okay, so then it was 22% said that the first friendship breakup that deeply impacted them happened before age 16 and 40% said that the first friendship breakup that deeply impacted them happened, Oh, I lost the age range, wasn't it? 16 to 26

Meenadchi: 30:02

16 to 26

Alex Alexander: 30:04

so I guess if that means I'm not thinking about those friendship breakups, then my answer, I would fall in that 40% range. But I'm not surprised. I mean, before age 16, I can think of friendship breakups I saw, like, people I knew who were experiencing a friendship breakup. You know, where, like, there was a trio of friends, and one friend kind of got, like left behind. Like, I remember witnessing this when I was in middle and high school, and I am sure that that is still with those, with those people, because I remember thinking about how heartbreaking it was for them, and I was like on the outside the next stat, well, you've already mentioned this one, but I'm gonna say it one more time. Is that is that 63% have been on both sides of a friendship breakup. Have you ever broken up with a friend? No, I'm curious.

Meenadchi: 31:09

I don't know. I was thinking about that. I think I feel confident that I have never said to somebody, Hey, I. I don't want to be friends anymore. There are definitely relationships that I have sort of invested in less over time, to where I don't know what's going on in their lives, but I wouldn't necessarily be unhappy to hear from them, and I don't know that they'd be unhappy to hear from me, type of thing I also know so fellow cancer, I have, like, a really huge capacity for repair, so rupture can happen and and if we want to have a conversation three years down the line, I'm usually some version of available for it. So I think that, you know, because of my personal tendencies, I don't know that I've ever really, really done a friend breakup.

Alex Alexander: 32:10

It's funny that you say the three years because I'm the same, I wouldn't say that. I would in certain cases like that, I would think things would change, but I'm very open to the conversation, and I also, you know, you never know it definitely wouldn't be the same as it was before, but that doesn't mean maybe there's not some new version of that friendship potential. I don't know. I wouldn't close that door.

Meenadchi: 32:36

Yeah, yeah. I'm thinking of like the curse of not closing doors. You know what I mean? Those are the words that came in.

Alex Alexander: 32:46

Yeah. I also don't think I have ever initiated a friendship breakup. I just recorded an episode on what I call like a friendship pause. And I've definitely done that. I've definitely come to someone and said, Hey, this pattern, we're in this conversation. We're having this whatever I feel this way. You know, an example I've used this before is I had a friend who was having a problem outside of our friendship. And, I mean, we're talking years, years, the same problem just kept invading every single interaction, anytime we were together, even like a full weekend trip was the only thing she could talk about was this other problem she was having. And I had listened, I had tried to brainstorm at certain points. I had encouraged her. I mean, I felt like I had done everything and exhausted every resource, and I finally just said to her, Hey, I don't think I'm helping you with this, but it seems to be all consuming for you, and I think that we need to take some time, and I would really hope that you would use that time to maybe work on this problem you have, because it just seems To be the only thing that exists in our friendship for a long time, for years, and eventually we did. We did come back together. Our friendship is very different now than it was. So that's why I like to say like it's a new version, but I have asked for that before, not a breakup,

Meenadchi: 34:41

yeah, as soon as you started talking, I thought, Oh, 100% the same. I have done that. I had someone and, and I don't know if we ever will be in relationship again, but similar situation, they were going through something, and in their kind of trauma and stress response to this multi year thing, they crossed a boundary, like a very explicitly set boundary. And I said that doesn't work for me, because you're going through something really hard, and that it is hard, but in order for this to be sustainable, like if, if the hard thing is making it so that your brain can't hear my boundary, we can't be with each other sustainably, and so that relationship is on pause for the time being, and and they'll reach out if they feel a shift. So that really resonated,

Alex Alexander: 35:37

just an option for people. I like to talk about it because, you know, I think at the end of the day, it's like, what does your gut feel? I'm gonna go with your gut, kind of person. And you might feel like the pause is not the answer, like it might need to end. And I totally understand that, but I just don't think the pause is talked about enough. And that that could save a lot of relationships, even though they would be different. I want to reiterate that to people like the point is change, therefore it's going to feel different. On the other side, you're not going to come back to the same relationship you had. And I think that also can catch people up. Because then it doesn't feel the same, and then they end up ending it anyways. But the more we can talk about that, the more maybe people go there.

Meenadchi: 36:28

I'm gonna toss something out to you because I'm curious to hear your thoughts. One of the skills I've really been that I've really sort of enjoyed building is what I call kind of like the line in the sand. Sometimes rupture is so painful, and then, depending upon the context and our different perceptions of reality, right? We're never going to get to a point where we agree on what actually happened. We're never going to see the same truth. But sometimes we can draw a line in the sand and say, from here, moving forward, here's how we will be with each other. I feel really freed by having that as an option. I also know that it's because part of my brain works in a certain way that I can sort of compartmentalize and like, like, I'm not going to bring up something you said five months ago, if we've drawn the line right here, I'm curious how that sits with you. And also, if you've seen that, come up anywhere,

Alex Alexander: 37:27

I feel like that comes up a lot in family relationship conversations, sometimes in romantic relationship conversations, but I think more so in family relationship conversations, like when you talk about that, where my mind goes is my own struggles with family, and even people In my family that I am on pause with, because there are those people I have made it very clear, like, here is my line in the sand. I am okay to move on from all those things that have happened in the past, really terrible things, honestly, like things that maybe that's, again, my cancer showing, because I think some people wouldn't, but, but one, I need you to acknowledge that happened. And two, the line in the sand also means that moving forward, your behavior has to be different, and I don't need it to be perfect. Off the bat. I get that there is a period where we are like, re learning, but I need you to be open to me saying, hey, that is the same behavior we can't have, that I can't have that I can't do that. And I need to see, like, the effort and the change, and really, truly feel like, over time, this is gonna shift. And I think you're right. Some people can't do that. That's okay. I don't think there's a better way, like it's whatever feels right to people. I do think there's the problem right the line in the sand could be, let's just forget and I'll ignore it. I would say, don't do that. Don't do that. Like you deserve the acknowledgement and you deserve the changed behavior. But I really feel like that's mainly a topic I see really pushed in, like the family space, definitely not in like the friendship or community space. What about you? Where do you think you see that? Or maybe you don't see it at all?

Meenadchi: 39:51

I don't know that I see it that much. I know that it worked very successfully with me, for with a friend with whom I had rupture. We had, like, about two years of like, space and all the things, I think selfishly, sometimes I feel sad that that as a tool is not more accessible, because we change, and there is love available, if we can. And again, you know, there's this nuance between wounds. I think there's a very deep difference when someone hurts you intentionally, versus when we're just in our own shit buckets, splashing on top of each other, you know. And I think, I think in those cases where someone's been intentionally harmful, intentionally cruel, that is maybe a space where I wouldn't say right, but if we're just kind of like swimming around trying to get to shore, navigating our own shit, I think there's real value in being able to say, Okay, we're different people. Now, we didn't do right by each other in these ways, but like, let's honor and live up to the people we want to be in this moment and see how we can find each other.

Alex Alexander: 41:02

What keeps coming up for me when we're talking about this is, I firmly believe, and I'm not the one who came up with this. I want to put that out there, like for anybody who's like, Wait, tell me more. Go read All About Love by bell hooks. But love is absolutely. Action. Love is not words. Love is action. In my mind, that is how I live. My life is like, what are the actions I am taking? And so for me, when I hear this line in the sand thing, you're right, it's like people can change. So if that past version hurt me, Okay, again, like, let's acknowledge it. But then the love that you're showing me, the reason I am keeping you here, the reason I am okay with the line in the sand, is that you are showing me love by taking action to show up in a way in this relationship that doesn't feel harmful to me. And so when there is no action, that's where I start to be like, okay, okay, well, there's my answer. You know, you can say all the things you want, but there's no action, so there's my answer. And that's when I'm way more likely to walk away when you were talking in the beginning of the episode about how I can't remember exactly what you said, but you're talking about how you know you assume that, like your friend would be there forever. The for life, for life. I come from a very different place, like my background, my my childhood, my my upbringing, my trauma that lives in there. I don't believe that any relationship is permanent, not even our familial relationships. One somebody could pass away at any moment, and suddenly you're left with that hole. And I get that you still have right the relationship you had with that person, like that person can pass number one, my mom passed away when I was 13. But number two, are there pieces of any familial relationship that will always be there absolutely but not everyone lives in a day to day life where their family shows up in a way that is safe and supportive and positive, and therefore any relationship could go away at any time. I also live in a belief that, like you can create the support system you need at any time. And the reason I'm sharing that is just that I do think that certain relationships were really sold, that they are permanent, they are forever, they are never going anywhere. And if you can even fathom for a second, I get that it's really hard for somebody who has a really amazing family to consider that those relationships could not be the right ones for you, but if you just, you know, Fathom for a second that nothing is permanent, it suddenly inspires a lot of action to show up right, to show that there is love to be Like this is real, to give evidence of these relationships, and sometimes you also have evidence that contradicts it. And you know that's like, where rupture happens.

Meenadchi: 44:28

Can I point out something that I'm sort of just like sensing? I feel like there's a really big difference between having a sense and knowing a belief that nothing is permanent, that things can change at any time. I think that that is true, that is a fact. And it's somehow so different from avoiding intimacy, Oh, absolutely. And it's also different from clinging to intimacy, Yeah, or like trying to force intimacy, absolutely.

Alex Alexander: 44:58

And I love that you're taking this a step deeper, because you're so right. I think it makes me appreciate what I do have so much more that I actually push myself to lean into intimacy in a stable way. I'm not I'm not, like, dumping everything to somebody, but like, I want a slow build with people, and I will push my edge a little bit sometimes, because I want that. I also have worked very hard at all childhood people pleasing tendencies, and I'm not saying that's all gone, but where I've really found myself now is like, what is the most intentional actions I can take to also show up for these people. I can't be all the things. So what are the things I am most suited to do, and how can I do them the best? And then trust that I have done what I can, and also trust that I have pushed my edge in a sustainable way on the intimacy, and that's enough to keep a really strong connection. It's kind of hard to verbalize, but I think that's the best I'm going to do with it.

Meenadchi: 46:12

One I think it sounds really beautiful, and I just have a felt sense in my body listening to you. Ooh, of like the groundedness.

Alex Alexander: 46:20

I don't know. Maybe it'll help somebody push their edge today. I don't know why that came up, but I don't always know why everything comes up in this podcast. Things just appear in my head.

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 46:33

Are you still with me? We had another technical issue right here, so I thought I would drop in, and I don't have a lot of say right now, but I just, I know this is a long episode, and I know that this conversation, we're really maybe touching on some raw nerves here, so I'm just sending you a really big hug. If anything in this episode is triggering or dredging up old wounds. I see you.

Alex Alexander: 47:01

Yeah, I was just saying that. Well, actually, I'm gonna say it different this time. You know, your study says that grief was the most prominent emotion and persists in people's lives today. And since this entire study is about people's lived experiences, it just always causes me to consider my own and I was saying that even though that one friendship breakup that sticks with me was, I think, six or seven years ago. Now, you know, I mentioned earlier in the episode, I lost my mom when I was 13. I've lost plenty of people very close to me and the friendship breakup, grief journey has been so similar to the others, if I'm being honest, it feels all consuming in the beginning, and then over time, it morphs into a little bit fewer and far Between. And then you get to the point where you, you know, hope well, right? I wish well for that person, but I am a little sad they're not here for certain moments. We also reach that period where you're in a moment that's maybe very special, and you forget about them, and then you're kind of upset that you forgot about them so much of the friendship breakup for me mimicked the experience I had in other really profound losses in my life.

Meenadchi: 48:30

I think that that's so deep and so true. There were two things that kind of like popped for me. But one was the piece about like, you know, remembering, like you forget, and then you remember, and then you feel all kinds of different feelings. And the other is that, you know, there was a point in my career where I was doing a lot of work with people who had experienced pregnancy loss, and that introduced me to the term disenfranchised grief, like grief that isn't acknowledged, you know, kind of like when a pet dies, it's not acknowledged as like, you know, and friend breakups because of how they're not talked about, and the kind of validity, or whatever that friendships hold in the places where we live, is a form of disenfranchised grief. And though I think grief is hard in our society. We're not living in a culture or society that's structured to support big feelings very well. And then it becomes even harder when you're like, I don't even know what I'm supposed to do. So yeah. Resonance with the fact that the ways in which all forms of grief, they have their distinctions, and they are mirrors of the same. I was just thinking to add to the the idea of kind of like disenfranchised grief, something I have heard from people who message me is grieving other experiences grieving the loss of a romantic relationship, right? Has this kind of script, right? Get your ice cream, lay on the couch, sit under a blanket, tell everyone that your relationship just ended. Cry about it. People show up at your door to lay with you on the couch. You know, if you lose a spouse everybody. I mean, again, I am very raw and in the moment on this one, so I can very much describe the experience. But if somebody loses a spouse, their family and their most trusted people flock to them. Get on same day flights, if necessary. They sit in their house, probably, if, if they can, for a week, not doing a whole lot. There are also people in the background who are quietly wandering around trying to prep a meal or make a phone call to insurance or to this person or, well, they, you know, kind of try and insulate the main person in crisis from having to do those things. There's just kind of this script that happens. And what I've heard from people is it's really hard, because if you have these really deep friend breakups, what do you do? Yeah. What is the normal way? Right? The script, the narrative, way of people coming to show up for you. How long do you get to grieve it? Can you opt out of things in life, or do you just have to keep pushing through and then that disenfranchised feeling just compounds on itself, because you again feel so alone in this experience where so many other thoughts are going through your head, which is something you also asked about in your study. So 70% said they had a dip in self doubt. Dip in sense of self worth.

Alex Alexander: 52:01

Oh, a sense of self worth. Self worth, 70% I just want people to sit with that, because 70% is a lot, and our self worth is so much of what moves us through every interaction in our day. Yeah, and so if you're quietly suffering and you don't feel like you have a way to express this outward, and then you're also struggling in your self worth, well, 67% questioned their skills as a friend.

Meenadchi: 52:38

I think I still do. I think I still do. And again, some of this comes with, like, age, but there's like, a sense of, like, What the fuck do I know? Like, I don't fucking know, fucking know anything. And I think sometimes it feels like, the more we go into that, sort of like I literally know nothing, I will try and do something. I hope that it doesn't hurt somebody. I don't know what I'm doing. It's then sometimes becomes kind of easier to find the way forward. But yeah, a lot of people question their abilities as a friend. They question their ability to choose friendships. Well, like, do I even know how to choose good people

Alex Alexander: 53:21

when you had your friendship breakup and you were questioning your skills as a friend, is there anything that comes to mind that you maybe did in the aftermath in your other platonic relationships? Yeah. Like, were you more vocal about how much you cared. Were you more regular, like you were committed to checking in with people? Is there anything that comes to mind that you did?

Meenadchi: 53:48

So one, there were some interesting responses on this from the study. For me personally, I think I mentioned that I was going through like an intense period, and I think that I was doing quite a bit of trauma dumping, and I kind of went on a little bit of a pendulum swing, and I sort of, like stopped sharing anything with anybody, you know what I mean, I became sort of more limited. And I'm probably, I've had some really, really beautiful experiences with friendships in the last year, specifically that have helped me come to a sort of middle ground around that. But this was sort of one of the questions that I asked. Let me see if I can kind of scroll through Yeah, and see what I can find in the data. So something that was really, really interesting. So one of the things I asked was, like, on a scale of one to 10, has it felt easy or hard to form new friendships after the breakup? And there were some people who were on both ends of the spectrum, but a lot of the data set kind of in the middle, like people were kind of like hanging out, like between three and eight, like some people said, it felt actually easier. And my guess is because, again, from some of the stories, my guess is that the from breakup was sort of like helped them clarify who they were and who they were looking for and for others. You know, they kind of lingered in the heartbreak. The other question I asked on a scale of one to 10, did your effort change with other existing friendships following the breakup? And one was I stopped trying, and 10 was I put in a lot more effort, even that was kind of like middle of the road, there are three people who put nine and 10, right? So one person who put nine, two people who put 10. The majority is kind of like between four and seven. You know what I mean. Of people like it didn't seem to change as much as I really expected that, you know, and it didn't.

Alex Alexander: 55:56

I guess if I had to answer that question, I would probably put a five. So something unique about the friendship breakup I had was that this friend that broke up with me broke up with multiple other friends at the same time, and then there was kind of this outer circle of people that she also. I was not in contact with anymore, but the other two people that she verbally said we are done to we actually kind of went on lockdown, like we did not talk about it, what had happened to us with anybody else, and it was not because we were ashamed or anything. It was actually just that we didn't want her relationships with anybody else to be impacted. If they wanted to be friends with her, that's fine, and that's because we thought she was probably going through a hard time. Also, I don't have actually a lot of ill will for her. I like I hope she's doing well, I really do. And so we processed it between us to the point where other friends, like obviously knew that this had happened, but we wouldn't really tell them anything. It took me five plus years to tell even some of the like, most basic facts. What I will say is that within that remaining friendships, it did create a very immediate like, I appreciate you, I love you like, I want to work harder in this friendship. How are we all doing with us? Remove that friendship. Like, how are you and I doing? Because now is the moment we are raw. Like, now is the moment, yeah, if you have anything you've wanted to talk to me about, let's do it, yeah, with the like, commitment that we're going to work through it. And so I guess that's why I'm saying, like, it's a five, because in that sense, I worked at a 10. But all my other relationships, it's not like I suddenly started texting them way more like everything else kind of stayed the same with other friends in my life, yeah, but there was kind of this moment with these other couple friends of, let's just lay it on the line, yeah. And know right now, how we all stand? Yeah, but that does have to do with, like, the group dynamic and not that would have obviously been very different Had this been a one off friendship. I guess I didn't ask that. I mean, you said you've been friends with your friends since you were 10, so I'm assuming she knew your family and things. Was she a part of, like, an interconnected group of people in your life.

Meenadchi: 58:44

Not so much. I mean, she was loved and known by everybody. Like, I remember I had my covid happened a few months after she broke up with me, and so I had a zoom birthday party. And, like, it was, it was a lot of people who came. I think it must have been like, because at that time, everybody was like, Yeah, zoom, you know, there might have been like, 40 to 50 people on that birthday. Zoom call, and I played a trivia game, and I said, Who's the one person who should be in the room who's not here? And everybody knew the answer. You know what I mean? Like, everybody was like, oh, yeah, we know. So she was loved and known by everybody in my family, and I think in many ways, still is right, but was she a part of their daily lives the way she was part of mine? No, and vice versa?

Alex Alexander: 59:26

Yeah. It's interesting to hear the differences. And I haven't talked about this group versus kind of singular friendship before in relation to friendship breakup, so this actually might give people listening some deeper like reflection about what happened for them. I think about this stuff a lot, and I've never thought about the group dynamic when it comes to friendship breakups. So yeah, yeah. And I was in a group dynamic, so yeah, but maybe I just wanted, maybe I just wanted to ignore that thing. I don't know. So the other thoughts that went through people's head were 64% of people questioned whether they can move through conflict. Well, did you have this thought,

Meenadchi: 1:00:12

yeah, I teach non-violent communication,

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 1:00:18

and you're like, do I need to find a new job? Should I be teaching this?

Meenadchi: 1:00:23

Yeah, you know. But again, you know what I know about myself is that when I'm in my zone of genius, when I'm teaching, I'm very much in flow, and then when I'm just like a regular human being with my all my flaws and my fuck ups, it's different. I think there that I definitely went through a period of being wary of intimacy. I think even to this day, I'm a little I'm mindful about who I say is my friend, and who I say is community. Because I think that internally, I have certain standards for what a friend is, you know what? I mean it, and those are not always standards we've explicitly discussed. So there's not those are not always standards that we meet for each other. So yes, I really, really questioned my ability to move through conflict and navigate relationships. Well, did you?

Alex Alexander: 1:01:16

Yeah. I feel like I navigated the situation. I mean, I was obviously in shock. And I'm a very you know, like, this is where the Gemini side comes out. I'm a very direct person. I will say exactly how I feel. I think that I navigated it pretty well, my concern wasn't, Was I bad? My concern was almost, Was I too direct? Oh, yeah. Like, could it have been saved if I laid down, yeah, and kind of allowed, you know, whatever she wanted, like, I still don't know. I apparently did something wrong, and I don't know what it is. And I have talked to her since she's reached out, and I have asked, like, again, now, apparently other people know further out in my life, not any of my close people. And I have told them I do not want to know. If she wants me to know, she can tell me. I do not want to know she has my phone number. We have this opportunity. But my initial thoughts were, if I had, you know, rolled over and just let the interaction maybe play out the way she thought, versus being like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, nope, you can't speak to me that way. I remember sending a text message saying to her, Hey, you might be telling yourself that I don't want to have this conversation, and I need you to know that that is not true. I actually very much want to have this conversation, and I'm here whenever to have it, and I think I got back like, I'm working late tonight. I'll think about it. That's fine. That's fine. But there were moments of like, I think I actually handled it very well. And there were moments where I was like, did I actually handle it too well? And I don't now. Now I know I'm glad I handled it the way I did, but in the moment, you know, you're so raw, maybe if I had just been more easy going and I had let her move through her feelings like we'd still be friends, but that's not creating a very equal relationship long term. So I'm happy I didn't do

Meenadchi: 1:03:40

it that way. I think that there's nothing ever to be gained from sort of rolling over or letting people treat us disrespectfully. What I have known from my own experience is that there are moments when I've looked back and said, you know, if I had more capacity, like in that moment, if I had more bandwidth, then I wouldn't have taken this So personally, and if I hadn't taken this personally, I could have responded differently. Are you right? There's like the difference between feeling really offended by how somebody treats you and getting sharp and defensive in your own way, versus being like, bro, you can't talk to me like that, like out of your mind, there's like a real energetic difference in how I think we react and respond, and that, I think that that can sometimes shape a new outcome.

Alex Alexander: 1:04:31

So we have obviously covered very deeply that we have both gone through friendship breakups and norm, not normally, but often, when I have people on right? They are not they don't work in this space. This isn't something they do. So I can't necessarily ask the questions I'm about to ask, which is, if somebody has found themselves here, do you have any like, few top tips for how they I guess process or move forward, or, yeah,

Meenadchi: 1:05:06

I am a big fan of letter writing activities. Write the letter that you wish you could write to your former friend, right? Write a letter to the five year old version of them. What are the things you want to say to the five year old version of them. Write a letter to if you're looking back and like, recognizing moments where you could have done things differently, write a letter to that version of you, and then give it all some space and write a letter back. So that might be the first thing. The second thing I'll say is very unconventional, but, like, go to Reddit. Reddit saved me.

Alex Alexander: 1:05:43

We love unconventional, but you're so right. Yeah, go feel less alone. Yeah.

Meenadchi: 1:05:49

People like, because there was a person on Reddit whose best friend had dumped her cold turkey, like, no contact after 24 years. And I just like, it's not just me. So, you know, like, binge this podcast. Like, really believe that you're not alone. Like, look for those resources.

Alex Alexander: 1:06:07

I think those are fantastic tips. And I would just say for anybody, like, there's no right it's grief. Yeah, there's no right way. Way to grieve, like listen to yourself and give yourself that space. I wish I had tried to let it out more. You know, I think I felt so much shame that had happened, and we don't have kind of that vision of how we process a friendship breakup, and so I really did try and suppress all the outward feelings of it. And I'm not saying, you know, go out and trauma, dump it on everyone, but just acknowledging, like I'm a little sad today, I am really stuck in my thoughts about that friendship break up, that it could be as simple as that. It doesn't need to be retelling the story a million times, but yeah, I just, I really shut myself in with my thoughts for a really long time. Yeah. What a beautiful episode. Thank you for having me. There's so much here for somebody so many stats and statistics and stories, I want to thank you for sharing. I know this is not an easy topic to share about.

Meenadchi: 1:07:32

Thank you for hosting and making this face. Yeah, thank you. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 1:07:39

I hope that this conversation between Meenadchi and myself gave you some of what I felt listening to her and this episode, which is that you are absolutely not alone in this experience. If you're going through a friendship breakup right now, or if you've been carrying the weight of one from your past, here's what I want you to remember, 94% of people have experienced multiple friendship breakups. So the next time you feel like no one understands what you're going through, maybe they do, but they just never talk about it. The grief of a friendship breakup is real, the questioning of your worth as a friend, it's normal, and there's no timeline for healing from this kind of loss. If you want to hear more from Meenadchi, definitely check out her TEDx talk. My friend broke up with me. Here's what I learned. I'll link to that along with her website and social media in the show notes. And if today's conversation brought up your own friendship breakup story and you want to share it, my DMs and emails are open. It's just me in there. Nobody else will see sometimes, just being witnessed in these experiences can be part of the healing. And with that, I'll see you next week.

Podcast Intro/Outro: 1:09:01

Thank you for listening to this episode of Friendship IRL. I am so honored to have these conversations with you. But don't let the chat die here. Send me a voice message. I created a special website just to chat with you. You can find it at alexalex.chat. You can also find me on Instagram. My handle, @itsalexalexander. Or go ahead and leave a review wherever you prefer to listen to podcasts. Now if you want to take this conversation a step further, send this episode to a friend. Tell them you found it interesting. And use what we just talked about as a conversation starter the next time you and your friend hang out. No need for a teary goodbye. I'll be back with a new episode next week.