According to many people, a break up is one of the hardest things you will ever go through. A lot of emotions come into play and you don't really know how to handle it. Lets be real here, you feel like literal shit majority of times.
You think thats bad? Wait until you go through a friendship breakup. The one you don't see coming. Whilst a partner is important to you, your friends should be your life, you when it goes tits up you literally feel blindsided, confused, hurt etc. In my opinion I would think that a friendship breakup is just as bad, if not worse than a romantic one.
Personally, I am the type of person that if I don't want to be friends anymore for a legit reason I will just stop talking to you, and whilst many people probably will think that's really bitchy, in my opinion, if you've done something wrong why would I give you the time of day? However, recently a few of my friends have just left our group as they feel like a group isn't for them anymore. That's fine. It's their life at the end of the day, do what you want. But I don't think I will ever completely understand how you can just leave a group when you're friends with everyone in the group. I don't know if that really makes sense but that is what I find really difficult about friendship breakups; I never truly understand if there hasn't been any foul play.
But anyway, to the part you've been waiting for... how to handle it.
In my experience, an amazing way to deal with the loss of a friend (they aren't dead but you get me) is to talk about it with your other friends (cliché much). In my case I speak about it with the other girls in my group, which I guess is standard, it would be weird if we didn't talk about someone in our group leaving. But I also talk to girls outside the group for example my work friends, my Mum, Luke and Elana. Its aways helpful to be able to vent to someone not in the situation or just get an external opinion.
You do need to speak about it, especially if it is someone that was very important to you, therefore bottling it up isn't the way to go. If you don't talk about it there is also a possibility of you beginning to feel angry when really no one is at fault, its just a case of life getting in the way.
You could also treat it like an actual break up. Keep yourself busy, pick up more hours at work, just allow yourself to be distracted for a while. I know in the long run this isn't the best way to deal with your issues but it is a quick fix if you just want it off your mind for a while.
Another suggestion of mine is to address the friend straight on, if you haven't already. I am a hypocrite for saying this as I'm not one to reach out when this has happened to me in the past but I understand that some people need to talk to the person directly and if that's for you then I think go for it. This way you can really try and understand where they are coming from, see if theres anything you can do to salvage the friendship or just put your mind at rest knowing that you tried.
In all honesty, you're going to loose friends as you get older, its just life. Its hard and some times unnecessary but hopefully it will help mould you to be the person you end up being.
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