{"id":40640,"date":"2025-07-05T11:29:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-05T11:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/40640\/"},"modified":"2025-07-05T11:29:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-05T11:29:10","slug":"my-close-friend-is-depressed-im-not-sure-if-it-explains-why-shes-canceling-on-me-constantly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/40640\/","title":{"rendered":"My close friend is depressed. I’m not sure if it explains why she’s canceling on me constantly."},"content":{"rendered":"

Ask A.J. is Slate\u2019s advice column on addiction, recovery, and how to hate yourself less.\u00a0<\/strong>Submit a question here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s anonymous!<\/p>\n

Dear A.J.,<\/strong><\/p>\n

Friendship\/mental health question for you. I have a friend who I was very close with for almost a decade. We\u2019re both parents, we work in the same field, and we\u2019ve been through a lot together: births, deaths, promotions, unemployment, complaining about our spouses, mental health stuff\u2014all the good and bad. Normally we hang out a few times a month or so, and talk very often on text, but over the past several months, she\u2019s kind of slowly backed out of my life.<\/p>\n

It started with canceling a few dinners that never got rescheduled. Then she started taking days to respond to texts (not the norm for us, or, I would guess, for most female friends). If this were anybody else I\u2019d \u201ctake the hint\u201d and start telling myself stuff like \u201cpeople grow apart,\u201d etc., but this is a long friendship and she\u2019s had struggles with depression on and off. I\u2019ve asked if everything is OK (in general, and between us), and she always tells me she\u2019s just really busy at work. When I decided to stop being so pathetic and leave the ball in her court, we went weeks without talking.<\/p>\n

Finally, she reached out to schedule drinks with me out of the blue \u2026 only to bail hours before. I\u2019m a grownup and I get that life is busy, but my feelings are hurt by this continual rejection\/avoidance and I\u2019m tempted to just not return her next text. I guess my question is \u2026 at what point do you kind of give up, and let someone fall out of your life?<\/p>\n

Signed,<\/p>\n

Left on Read<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n A.J. Daulerio
\n My Husband and I Opened Our Marriage. Well, the Worst Has Happened.
\n Read More<\/b>\n <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Dear Left on Read, <\/strong><\/p>\n

Why does losing an adult friendship result in such profound sadness and feel like such a personal failure? Most adult friendships are usually tied to something superficial or transactional: work, family obligations, kids\u2019 Little League, that dumb pickleball league you joined to be less lonely, or those \u201cbusiness\u201d friendships with people in your industry that often make you feel completely dead inside. So it\u2019s wonderful when you do have a deeper connection\u2014someone in your life who makes you feel validated and less insane. Who can gas you up when needed. Who you can just \u2026 sit with. This is so rare, so let me say right away: I\u2019m sorry for your loss.<\/p>\n

Being made to feel like the loss is your fault\u2014without ever getting any explanation as to what you did\u2014is even more devastating. It\u2019s a return to those elementary school days when a year goes by, and someone you once considered a best friend (4 EVER!) has a birthday party, and you are no longer invited.\u00a0As an adult, you can drive yourself crazy with imaginary scenarios, thinking there\u2019s a group chat happening without you, one where your ex-friend is itemizing every insecurity you have as a way of bonding with their new friends. It\u2019s so great to be around people whose feet don\u2019t smell like provolone! The truth is that you have no idea why she\u2019s drifting away. It\u2019s entirely possible that she really is just busy, and can\u2019t prioritize texting right now.<\/p>\n

The one part I\u2019d like to focus on is that you said there is a history of depression there. It sounds like you\u2019re questioning whether you\u2019re a bad friend for not inquiring or pressing enough to find out if they\u2019re really as busy and OK as they claim, or if they\u2019re in crisis. The urge to feel like you\u2019re somehow neglecting her may just be a way you\u2019re coping with this, and I can understand why, at the same time, you\u2019re worried about being annoying by reaching out too much. But there is an easy solution. It\u2019s possible to respect the boundary while also continuing to check in intermittently. It\u2019s not a violation of that boundary to care about someone even if the friendship has changed. Reach out just to ask how she is, occasionally, and accept that she might not give you too much in response. Give yourself enough space and grace to be available in an emergency to visit them if they\u2019re on a 72-hour hold at some horrible facility. (Cigarettes and comfy socks are always a good icebreaker, no matter what the status of the friendship is.)<\/p>\n

    \n
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    For right now, detach with love. I\u2019ve mentioned this approach in different scenarios in a couple of older<\/a> columns<\/a>, and it\u2019s a perfectly reasonable approach here as well. As a reminder, it means you get to provide a generous amount of love without losing self-respect and sanity. No one is worth that.<\/p>\n

    However, detaching with love is definitely a new muscle, one that needs to be worked on constantly. The first step in building this muscle is self-awareness. Do an honest TSA body scan of yourself every day: Co-dependency (beep!) \u2026 people-pleasing (beep!) \u2026 your own depression (beep!).<\/p>\n

    Once you gather all the information and then\u2014here comes the hard part \u2014accept it, you\u2019ll have the opportunity to work on your own issues and emerge from this much stronger. You might feel pathetic, but you are not pathetic. You are a person who cares about other people, which is a wonderful and admirable thing to be.<\/p>\n

    Don\u2019t torture yourself with why your friend is drifting away from you. Sometimes, there is no explanation for this other than that people change, but that doesn\u2019t make it any less painful. And remember: You close this door but keep your heart open. You deserve some peace, too.<\/p>\n

    <\/p>\n

    Sign up for Slate’s evening newsletter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ask A.J. is Slate\u2019s advice column on addiction, recovery, and how to hate yourself less.\u00a0Submit a question here.\u00a0It\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":40641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[18949,210,517,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-40640","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-friendship","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-mental-health","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114800398695681612","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}