How do you move on from people you are no longer friends with?

Hi Katie. 

Thank you for taking some time to share a situation that has been troubling to you.  You shared that you had a best friend a few years ago and you fell out because she was controlling and never respected you.  You said that one day you went off on her and you haven't really talked to her since.  This situation and your friendship tend to replay in your head.  Though you'd like to move on, you're not sure how.

Any relationship, be it romantic, with family or friends can feel like a loss when it ends.  When a relationship ends unexpectedly, this can especially sting.  You said that your friend was never really respectful to you, but you also shared that you went off on her one day and haven't really talked since.  I may be wrong here, but I'm imagining that you hadn't planned to go off on her.  Though you may have meant what you said, if you could go back in time, you might have presented your thoughts and feelings differently.  This unexpected loss AND the way the loss happened are most likely leading you to go through grief and experience guilt as well.  If you have experienced grief before, you may be familiar with the five stages of grief:  denial, anger, depression, bargaining and acceptance.  Grief doesn't move in a straight line going from one stage to the next either!  A person can bounce from one stage to another and experience stages of grief more than once before reaching acceptance.

Though you may logically know that you deserve to be treated better than your friend was treating you, there had to be some things that appealed to you about your friend, right?  Otherwise, you probably wouldn't have started being friends with her in the first place.  As humans, we tend to look back on things with rose colored glasses as well.  You might see mostly the good times with her and run through what happened in your head in a way that makes you feel guilty or bad.  

Working through grief, during any kind of loss, can be tremendously hard work!  We invest tons of time in friends-especially best friends.  I'd encourage you to think about speaking to a counselor on Betterhelp or elsewhere to work through some of these feelings as they have been persistent for some time.

Since the time you split with your old best friend, what has changed for you in your friendships with other people?  Are there any friends you have where you see yourself still allowing others to treat you in ways you don't like or don't deserve?  If so, it may be a good time to think/talk about healthy relationships and boundaries with a professional on this as well.

Thanks again for asking your question here.  I wish you the best of luck!