Drifting apart from a good friend...

Warning...novel here haha

So, my friend and I have known each other for about 6 years now. We met at work and we've been close for the last 5 years.

I was about 19 when we started working together and have struggled with my depression, suicidal thoughts and all that stuff through the 6 years, and she has really helped me with the long journey to actually want to try recovery and to try to keep choosing recovery.

She's very wise--she's actually about 8 years older than me, so she has a lot of great advice! And she's empathetic and doesn't judge me for the stupid decisions I've made...she's really been a great friend!

I've gone through a couple of relapses the last two years and she has always been the first person I've confessed my relapse to--you know, practice before I tell my parents/therapist so I can get the support I need.

ANYWAY.

My last relapse was different. I told her about it but unlike usual, I didn't go into details with her as to why I relapsed. I didn't feel the need to. I felt like I had a better handle on the situation than previous times.

Since then, things have just been...different. I don't talk to her as much as I used to and I feel like when we go out to lunch we have nothing to talk about--like the only thing that we had in common was talking about how I can overcome my struggles.

We've recently gotten in a bit of a fight and I'm thinking maybe this would be a good opportunity to just let us go our separate ways?

Advice is welcome, but if you can relate with a story, that's cool too cause I feel kind of alone/lost/whatever. Thanks in advanced! And bravo if you made it this far haha

Hi there!

I feel for you and can definitely relate. I befriended someone in my 2nd grade class and immediately hit it off. We were pretty much best friends since then. But around 6-7 grade our lives started to drift apart. We didn't see each other a lot. We would chat every now and then, but we were going through different things and, well, who knows why? But about 3-ish years later, we reconnected via Facebook and ever since we have been inseparable. Well, in our hearts at least, she lives 300 miles away from me, but we talk every few days and we visit each other.

Sometimes a friendship has to go through a growing period and separation. Not to sound too cliched, but if you guys somehow reconnect in the future than you know you guys are pretty much friends for life. If you feel like you really need her in your life and are only thinking of letting the friendship go because you are in this uncomfortable patch- talk to her about it! Don't let a dear friend go for anything less than a extremely good reason. Great friends who stay through the roughest patches of your life are hard to find.

It has been 7 years since my friend and I have reconnected and we are better than ever. I hope this helped a little.

Good luck!

Thank you for your reply! After I read it I decided that you had a good point, so I decided to talk to her over what we're fighting about. I told her (through text) I recognized what I did wrong, and I take responsibility, but at the same time I tried to explain why I did what I did.

She hasn't responded yet, and that was 5 hours ago.

I guess if it's not meant to be, it simply won't be. But I did all I could do, so I suppose it's up to her, now...sigh.

Sorry to hear that, i know how sad it feels. I've been in that situation as well several times. I had someone, we've been best friend (at least that's what i thought) for years since 7th grade. We experienced similar family issue so we absolutely understand and trust each other. We barely had fight or such but then after graduated from high school we started to drifting apart. Unlike before, she barely contacted me. After that I was always the one who started the conversations, i just wanted to say hello and how well everything is going on once in a while but she often responded with cold manner or even just read the message without a reply. She stopped talking without a reason.
Unlike me, she's not an introvert type so i realized that maybe she got better friends than me. So i eventually stopped to text or chat her first to see if she even realize we haven't talked but she didn't. I just stuck silently missing her knowing it's not worth anymore because she obviously no longer care, i felt like "sorry to bother you with my friendship".
Anyway, I heard a quote saying "A good friend is worth pursuing for" but why would a good friend running away??