Losing a friendship + stress causing health problems

[Asking Queries]

*Trigger/content warning: Loss of friendship (they decided to end the friendship), sadness, health problems (immune system)*



Hi everyone,

This post is in two sections, one about losing a friendship and the other about negative health effects of the stress of losing the friendship. I decided to separate it in case the part about health effects is triggering or otherwise upsetting for people.

Losing the friendship:
As documented in my previous posts, I dated a person who I will call V (no relation to actual name or anything else) for a few months — the dating ended when they realized that they were straight, but we both wanted to stay friends. V and I haven’t talked recently, as they’ve wanted time to process something (I don’t know what).
For brief context, I met V through a homeschool center that we both went to. Dating them was my first romantic relationship, and went quite well until it ended, which was sad but also seemed to go fairly well.
About a week ago, V emailed me saying that they would not be attending the homeschool center, and after me sending an email to ask whether they wanted to continue communicating, they said that they do not want to communicate or hangout outside of homeschool, which I interpret as an end to our friendship, especially if they go elsewhere for school. I’ve sent an email asking whether they would be interested in explaining why they don’t want to hangout or be friends, but I made it clear that (as always) responding was optional.
I’m posting here for emotional support, especially because my social anxiety is very severe right now, and it feels better in some ways to post here instead of talking to my friends — I know it wouldn’t be ok to try to change V’s decision, so I’m not asking for advice on that.
I feel devastated and powerless. I had felt confident that we would be friends for a while, and I didn’t see this coming. I really miss V already, and I feel like going back to homeschool will be a painful reminder of what happened.

The health effects:
While I won’t go into any detail, I have a serious immune system disorder that is sensitive to emotional stress (and many, many other things). Because of this, the stress of losing this friendship has made my physical health significantly worse, and I feel miserable physically. Of course, V didn’t intend for this to happen, but I think I still feel frustrated about it (I haven’t communicated this to V, as I can’t imagine it doing anything but upset them).

Apologies if this post is styled weirdly, I’ve been reading a lot of photography blogs and their style has probably influenced me. I might add more details in another post, I’m pretty tired right now.
- AQ

TLDR (mainly because I think they’re fun to write): A person who used to be my friend ended our friendship, I feel really sad about it, and that has made my health worse.

[Sam W]

Hi AQ,

I'm sorry, losing a friendship can be so painful, especially if it's one we hoped would be longer-lasting. And it really sucks that those feelings are now compounded by health issues that flared up as a response. I do want to say it's absolutely okay to feel frustrated, even with V, even though you know V didn't mean to make you have a flare up by asserting their boundaries. Sometimes letting ourselves have a feeling and have it process through us let's us let go of that feeling, rather than it lingering because we keep pushing it down.

With losing the relationship with V, do you think it would be helpful to treat this as the way you'd treat a break-up? We don't tend to get social scripts for what happens when a friendship ends, in spite of the fact that friendships can be as important, if not more important, than romantic relationships, and losing them can shake us up the same way a more "traditional" break-up would.