Hi WI -- I'm not going to address "what to do @ the pills" bec. that has been adequately and sanely covered.

I do want to mention the pain of giving up a long-time relationship. Sometimes we are in friendships that we chose at times in our lives when we are less healthy. As we grow, it is unfortunate that we have to dump these relationships. Because I'm not very skillful as reasonable confrontation (see the anger thread), on one occasion, I stopped responding to letters. This happened more than 10 years ago. Eventually, I tried to call the person to explain -- like that was appropriate, hahaha -- but the phone # was no good anymore. I still feel badly that I didn't explain clearly what was up.

Last summer, a 20-year-friendship bit the dust. I did try to explain, after biting back my anger in silence for a while. I did get angry during the phone call, and the person refused to talk to me. I called back, and in a more reasonable voice, asked the person to respond to a question @ why she behaved as she did. She hung up again. This woman actually referred me to my T, and was mentored by my T, and my T says that she doesn't understand friend's behavior, and that friend left me no alternative but to not participate in the relationship anymore. And that this friend owes me an apology, and that my T is surprised she's never tried to get in touch with me.

Bottom line: it can hurt to give up these friendships, esp, if our esteem is low or there's a history or we feel like we don't have many friends. But sometimes a hurtful friend is worse than no friend.

Just my two-cents, which probably is worth less than that.