The Heartbreak of a Lost Friendship (and How To Grow From It)
Photograph by Mariel Wiley
From a relatively young age you are told by adults that heartbreak is a terrible inevitability. What is not often mentioned is that heartbreak can come in many more forms than the breakup or loss of a significant other. Heartbreak can result from things such as the death of a family member or friend, experiencing a traumatic or life-changing event, and the loss of a job or life opportunity that will not come again. However, what I wish people discussed more is the heartbreak of falling out with a close friend.
I have had several friends I either grew apart from or had a fight with that resulted in the end of a friendship over the years. Losing them hurt, of course, but I wouldn’t say they broke my heart. I would cry, dwell on it, occasionally check up on their social media for a bit, and then move on. In six months I would get mildly annoyed thinking about the ex-friend, and after a year this person would be a distant thought in my mind.
This previous timeline I had for recovering from losing a friend all changed the day I lost someone I considered one of my closest friends--almost family.
Our friendship was special. My house was her house. We laughed together, cried together, felt comfortable sharing almost anything with each other. She was practically initiated into my family. What we had was everything I valued in a friendship and more.
Then we had a falling out. It was slow, painful, and unexpected for everyone in my life. No one ever expected our friendship to end, especially me.
Before losing this friend, I had had a tough year. This falling out only added to the dogpile of things that were messing with my mental health. As I said, I’ve experienced my fair share of lost friendships over the years, but this one felt different. It felt like I had lost a part of myself. This was a feeling I had only experienced after my first breakup, which happened a year earlier.
Every time I would think of this friend or her name would come up in conversation, I’d become teary-eyed and want to change the subject instantly.
To make matters worse, our friendship didn’t completely fall out. After a month of not talking, we had exchanged a few words, but were significantly less close. We rarely talked anymore and when we did talk, it was surface-level. The connection we once had felt nonexistent.
After a few months had passed, we saw each other in person and it was painful remembering how close we used to be: all the secrets we told, the memories we shared, and inside jokes had disappeared.
This was a friendship heartbreak.
I was lost on what to do about this lost friendship. I would long for the opportunity to become close again, but it’s rare for me to show someone I’m hurting without them. I had to find a way to cope with this heartbreak. It’s only right for me to share what I found.
When experiencing the heartbreak of a broken friendship, start by forgiving yourself for what happened. Sometimes friends fight and grow apart and that is okay. You are never a bad person for expressing concerns, enforcing boundaries, or standing up for yourself.
Look into yourself and your behavior during the falling out of this friendship. Is there anything you need to take accountability and apologize for? Was there anything done on your end that was out of line? This part is hard, especially for those who put an excessive amount of blame on themselves even if they did nothing wrong (me!). Make sure to take accountability for where you may have gone wrong, but don’t beat yourself up about it. No one is perfect.
Let your emotions out in any healthy way you can. Journal, write, draw, sing, dance, cry, vent to someone you trust, scream expletives into a pillow if you have to. Leaving the feelings of heartbreak bottled up inside of you is not good for you, trust me.
Most importantly, instead of replaying the end of your friendship over and over in your mind, ask yourself what you learned from it all. Decipher what you know now about maintaining friendships that you can carry into the future. What did this situation teach you about yourself? If the friendship ended on especially bad terms, this step is incredibly important.
It may feel like you’ll never fully move on from breaking up with a close friend, but in time, the pain will subside. Depending on how the friendship ended, you may even look back and smile thinking about the good memories you once had with this friend, rather than the memories feeling so sour.