For friends, boyfriend/girlfriend, and yourself, a healthy relationship is...

 

Support and Encouragement. I know when I’m not given the support and encouragement I need, I feel lost. It’s hard to tell what I’ll do because I don’t understand what I’ll do in the first place. Being in what feels like a maze, but with every wrong choice, I’m brought to the beginning once more, unable to escape.

With the help of my friends who do support and encourage me, they ask what’s wrong and if I want to talk about it. Depending on the situation, sometimes I need to tell them what’s happening so I can get help figuring out what to do. Other times, I’m unable to even speak of it, but they’re still available to help. When they do these things, it helps build me and carry out my endeavors.

 

To laugh and to cry. Not being able to laugh and cry with people is kind of scary. It makes me feel alone, because everyone expects me to always be the happy-go-lucky person. I fake a smile, so they don’t see, but inside I’m dying.

My friends understand that things happen. They understand the privacy I need before talking about it and they take me to a far enough location so that it’s just us. Talking about it helps, even if the situation itself doesn’t change. The fact that I was able to get some things off my chest, helps clear my mind.

 

Communication. When I have communication problems with people. It’s never good. The miscommunication often involves someone getting hurt, whether it be the other person or myself, though it’s never intended. Whenever I’m the one who’s been hurt, it always feels confusing. I thought we agreed on something, but something else happens. It’s escalated to another thing or even more things. Then I’m left confused by myself, not knowing where it all went wrong.

Understanding communication is key. My friends try to let me know when they’re going to be too busy to talk for long or not able to talk for a duration of time. They understand the importance of letting me when their plane landed for vacations or when they get home late at night, because knowing their safety brings me comfort.

 

Trust. Not having trust is a difficult task to manage. There’s been times when I don’t trust anyone to talk about my feelings with, or to back me up if rumors are being spread behind my back, because they’ve shown they can’t be trusted in those ways. When there’s no trust, then you just feel like strangers.

I trust my friends to be able to have deep conversations with me, without uttering a word of it to another person. Trusting them to watch my back if other people think it’s cool to hate on me and spread lies.

 

Honesty. I’ve been in a few situations when maybe I, or the other person, wasn’t honest. It always ends in regret from one or the other. I know the times I wasn’t honest was because I didn’t want to hurt the other person, but in the end, they find out. It’s sorta like whiplash: nothing bad happens at first, and it’s fine, but then before I knew it, I was in trouble.

I expect my friends to be honest. I know they are because they’ve shown it. Even if they weren’t honest, to not hurt me, they realize their faults. Instead of acting like they didn’t do anything wrong, they want to make it up.

 

Respect. Disrespect is a rabbit hole no one wants to go down. There’s been times I’ve been disrespected in many ways. Once there’s disrespecting me, it’s done. I’ve been hurt from them, of course, but I came back stronger from the experiences.

My friends respect everything and me I do. It helps build our relationships and makes us powerful.

 

Compassion. In the past, I’ve had some friends who weren’t compassionate about me. They didn’t care what happened as long as they got what they wanted from me. It hurt. There were times when I didn’t do anything because I had no one else. Though there were times when it got to a point, when even if I had no one else, I still left, and then I was alone.

Now, I have friends who I know are compassionate about me. They care about me, and show they do. They’re always there for me when I need them. My friends will help me and be there to talk about anything, whether it be something funny, happy, sad, or weird.

 

“Because I love you”, is a phrase I’d expect to hear from someone who really cared about me. If they were compassionate about me and respected me, if they wanted to support me, they’d make sure I’d be happy. But it’s not all about me, or one singular person. A relationship involves two people, dating, engaged, married, or more people, such as friendships. If there’s a lack in any of the categories, then it might just be unhealthy. Everyone deserves to be happy.