How to Make Friends in Los Angeles as an Adult (When You’re Burnt Out, Busy, and Healing Trauma)
From a Trauma Therapist Who Gets It
Let’s be honest — if you’re a high-achieving woman, chances are your career takes up most of your time, energy, and headspace. Maybe you work remotely, grinding from your laptop at home or you end up working into the night after you get home from the office. On paper, you’re successful and accomplished. You’re “doing all the right things.” But behind the scenes you feel disconnected, isolated, and maybe even a little empty. Maybe you dread the weekend because it can bring up loneliness and the anxiety that comes with FOMO.
Friendship — the deep, nourishing kind — feels like something everyone else figured out in college. And in a city like Los Angeles, where everything is fast-paced, image-driven, and wildly spread out, forming real connections can feel nearly impossible.
As a trauma therapist who works with high-achieving women navigating burnout, anxiety, perfectionism, breakups, and relational trauma, I want you to know:
✨ You’re not alone in this at all.
✨ This isn’t just a social problem — it’s a nervous system one.
✨ And there are ways to build meaningful friendships that don’t require you to over-perform or overextend yourself.
Adult Friendship Is Hard — But It’s Even Harder for High-Achieving Women
Between back-to-back meetings, big goals, and your mile-long to-do list, making friends often ends up at the very bottom of your priorities. And if you work remotely or from home, the built-in social structures that used to create connection — like coworkers, lunch breaks, or team outings — are often gone.
But it’s not just about time or having a lack of co-workers. It’s about how your past and your patterns shape the way you show up in relationships now.
If you’re like many of the women I work with, you might also be carrying:
Perfectionism: You feel like you need to “have it all together” and “be on” in order to have fun and show up socially
Anxiety or panic: Overthinking interactions, fearing rejection, or feeling drained by small talk
Burnout: You’re emotionally exhausted and have nothing left to give after work
Body image struggles: You avoid social events because you’re uncomfortable in your body and don’t want to eat in public
Codependency: You people-please or over-give to be liked, and then feel resentful or unseen
Toxic relationship patterns: Past friendships or romantic dynamics may have left you distrustful or hyper-vigilant
Unresolved trauma: Somewhere deep down, connection may not feel safe — even if you crave it
These aren’t personality flaws. These are protective responses — your nervous system is doing its best to keep you safe. But they can also keep you isolated, stuck in a loop of overwork, loneliness, and self-blame, sound familiar?
Why LA Makes It Even Harder
Now layer all of that onto the unique social landscape of Los Angeles, and it makes total sense why making friends here feels like climbing a mountain. No wonder staying at home and watching Netflix is more appealing - especially if you are burned out.
🚗 1. Everything is spread out
We get around by car. There’s no “running into” someone organically in Los Angeles. Every meetup requires scheduling, traffic navigation, and major energy output — especially when you’re already depleted.
🧠 2. The image pressure is real
Whether it’s your body, your clothes, your career, or your relationship status — LA has a way of making you feel like you need to look the part just to belong. If you’re already struggling with self-worth or body image, this pressure can be paralyzing. It can feel like an uphill battle to just show up when these thoughts are racing in your mind.
💻 3. Remote work = isolation
Working from home can mean entire days without meaningful human contact — and the longer you go without it, the harder it can feel to reach out or reconnect with vulnerability.
🔄 4. Transient culture & burnout
People come and go in LA, schedules are full, and there’s a constant undercurrent of “busyness” that makes consistency — the foundation of real connection — hard to build.
The Trauma Connection: Why Your Nervous System Might Say “No” to New Friendships
Even if you want deep friendships, part of you might feel overwhelmed, frozen, or even avoidant when opportunities for connection arise. That’s your nervous system talking.
Unprocessed trauma — especially from childhood or relational experiences — can wire us to believe that closeness equals danger, betrayal, or abandonment. It can feel like, “oh great, here is another opportunity to get hurt - no thanks.” So you stay busy. You stay productive. You stay in control to stay protected.
In fact, research has shown that insecure attachment styles — particularly avoidant and anxious patterns rooted in early caregiving relationships — significantly affect adults’ ability to form and maintain close friendships (Fraley & Davis, 1997, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology). When you’ve learned that vulnerability = rejection, it’s no surprise your body tenses around intimacy, even in platonic relationships.
Additionally, people with histories of toxic or emotionally abusive relationships often carry relational hypervigilance and distrust into new social settings. A 2021 study in Current Psychology found that individuals with narcissistic abuse history often struggle with self-blame and identity confusion, which can lead to social withdrawal and difficulties forming secure, mutual friendships (James & McMahon, 2021).
What You Can Do to Build Real Friendships (Without Overworking for Them)
The good news? You don’t have to “fix” yourself or pretend to be someone you’re not in order to build meaningful connections. You just need to start from the inside out.
1. Start with your body, not your calendar
Notice where friendship feels threatening or draining. Where does your body tighten or collapse? Where does it feel open, curious, or relaxed?
When you listen to your nervous system, you can choose spaces and people that feel nourishing — not just “network-y.”
2. Look for consistency over charisma
You don’t need to find your “soul friend” in one coffee date. Real friendships grow through shared time, repeated presence, curiousity, and mutual safety.
Try:
Showing up to the same fitness class or creative group weekly
Joining a co-working space or remote worker meetup
Volunteering somewhere that aligns with your values
3. Lead with Curiosity
You don’t need to impress, fix, or manage anyone. You just need to be real and start from a place of curiosity and bravery.
Connection deepens when we risk being seen — even a little. Within your internal boundaries, try sharing honestly, not perfectly.
4. Tend to the parts of you that feel unworthy or afraid
Using somatic and parts work approaches (like Internal Family Systems), you can gently meet the parts of you that say:
“They’ll think I’m too much”
“I’m not good enough”
“Why bother? It never works out”
These parts often just want protection — and when you tend to them, you create space for deeper, more aligned relationships.
5. Let therapy support your capacity for connection
If social anxiety, perfectionism, codependency, or trauma are holding you back from friendship, you don’t have to push through it alone. Therapy can help you:
Rewire your relationship patterns
Regulate your nervous system
Feel safe enough to show up, connect, and receive support
Final Thoughts: You Don’t Have to Earn Belonging by Overachieving
If you’re feeling lonely or disconnected in LA, it’s not because you’re flawed or bad at friendships. It’s because you’ve been surviving in systems — personal and cultural — that have made connection feel like a risk.
But real friendship? It doesn’t require you to be perfect. It doesn’t ask you to grind or perform.
It asks you to be human. To be present. To be just a little more you.
And that — when supported and grounded — is more than enough.
Ready to Start Healing from the Inside Out?
I work with high-achieving women across California (online and in-person in West LA) who are ready to stop over functioning and start creating authentic, nervous-system-safe relationships — with themselves and others. 📍I offer in-person sessions in West LA and online therapy throughout California.
✨ Ready to begin? Book a free 15-minute consult here.
📚 Cited Research & Suggested Reading:
Fraley, R. C., & Davis, K. E. (1997). Attachment formation and transfer in young adults’ close friendships and romantic relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72(5), 1054–1063.
James, J. A., & McMahon, S. (2021). Understanding the psychological effects of narcissistic abuse in interpersonal relationships. Current Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-02094-9
Lieberman, M. D. (2013). Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect. Crown Publishing. (Helpful neuroscience-based insight into why disconnection hurts — and how connection heals)
📍I offer in-person sessions in West LA and online therapy throughout California.
✨ Ready to begin? Book a free 15-minute consult here.
Chloe Bean is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist practicing West LA, California. She integrates somatic experiencing and EMDR with traditional therapeutic approaches to support comprehensive healing from trauma, anxiety, body image issues, perfectionism, and relationship challenges.