Dear Prudence,
My best friend of five years has stopped talking to me and other people for nearly a month now. She says she’s feeling hazy and depressed after having what she calls a “crash” following an overseas work trip. I have no idea what that means, as she refuses to share any details. I’m perplexed because we’ve shared everything and worked through all of our struggles together for the past five years. She says she can’t handle talking to people right now because it makes her too angry and she doesn’t want to risk having a reaction that would end our friendship forever.
I assured her that our friendship is built on unconditional love and that could never happen. Alas, I told her I would respect her wishes. I understand she’s trying to protect me so I’m trying to give her time and space, but it’s difficult. I’m trusting her to be alone to figure her stuff out, but I feel it’s unfair that she isn’t trusting me with a shred of information to quell my anxieties. She promised me she would update me on her progress but has since ignored my messages checking up on her and most recently my message on her birthday. I am worried sick and I haven’t been able to go to sleep. It just feels so cruel. I feel like she is so obsessed with protecting me from a hypothetical harm she could inflict that she isn’t seeing the harm she’s already causing right now. How do I continue to give her the time and space that she needs while at the same time honoring and coping with my sadness, anger, and frustration?
—Worried Sick