Relationship w best friend of 10+ years is strained and we have very different interests and values – should I end friendship or am I being unreasonable?

I’m considering ending a friendship with someone I’ve been best friends with since high school (both late 20s f). Tl;dr is I feel hurt by a situation where she said she feels like I’m asking her to be a therapist, have residual hurt from times in the past, and feel we’ve developed very different interests and values. However, I’m torn and there is a part of me that wants to try to repair the relationship—I love her, and we have a lot of shared history together—but I’m not sure whether that’s possible or how to go about it, and it would depend on how she feels. Overall, I’m just really not sure what to do and was hoping some perspective from folks who’ve been in similar situations would help!

Earlier this year, I went through a bad breakup (it was my first relationship with a woman, which probably made it feel worse). I had also recently had Covid, was dealing with neurological issues from Covid, and didn’t feel like myself. I became extremely depressed and spiraled for months and felt like my life had been ruined—I was worried I wasn’t going to recover, and felt a tremendous amount of regret about my life and the decisions I’d made—and it became all I talked about for a while. During this time, I did lean on my friend a lot for support, but tried to be sensitive to how much I was doing that because I didn’t want to overwhelm her.

The last time we saw each other, we had a fight and she said she refused to talk about any of this with me anymore (she said “I’m not doing therapy sessions with you anymore, get professional help”). She also said I had interpersonal problems and bad social skills and have been that way since high school, and that I need to work on myself so I’m not so dysregulated all the time. While I understand everyone has different capacities for supporting people and that she reached her limit, and feel bad that I made her feel drained as I didn’t mean to, the way she said things felt shitty and kind of judgmental rather than coming from a place of concern. My romantic relationships haven’t been easy, but I have never had a problem making or keeping friends or with workplace relationships and think I’m mostly pretty well-liked. I’m aware I can be an intense person and can overwhelm other people with my emotions and tendency to fixate on things, and it’s something I’ve actively tried (and am still trying) to work on both in therapy and on my own.

Even though I understand not everyone can be there for me all the time, where I feel hurt and a little resentful is that I feel like it’s been unequal. I have been there for her every time she’s had a breakup or difficult life situation and has asked me for help or to listen, and I think if I felt the way she did I’d try to communicate it in a gentler way. I’m not sure whether I’m being unreasonable about her setting a boundary or whether it’s justified.

I also feel some residual hurt over something that happened three years ago. I went on a group trip to Puerto Rico with her and two other friends of hers, also got Covid on that trip, and they all left me in Puerto Rico (this was in 2022 and there was still a 5-day isolation requirement then). Her friends had jobs they had to get back to, but my friend did not have a job or any commitments at the time and initially said she’d stay with me and then changed her mind after one of her friends said she wanted her to come back with them. The changing her mind was what was most hurtful. I know that if she had been the one that got sick I would’ve stayed with her without question. She did apologize at the time and I was understanding about it, but now that I feel unsupported again it’s probably coming back up for me. There have been other times where she’s canceled on big things—like a trip together or coming to visit me once a couple years ago—at the last minute but those didn’t bother me.

In addition to this, we’ve just become very different people since high school and that’s perhaps the biggest reason I don’t know if I wanna be friends with her anymore. We have very different lifestyles—she’s very active and likes to go out to concerts and stuff a lot, which I don’t as much, and also does a lot of drugs. I have nothing against drugs but just don’t enjoy them so I don’t do them. I think we have such different things we like to do that there are more differences than common ground at this point, and no longer feel we have a lot to talk about when we get together—I felt this way even before this year.

My gut feeling is that I don’t want to be friends with her anymore, but I think I’d rather just let things fade away naturally like they sort of have rather than do anything to end the friendship.

However, I feel some pressure to figure this out soonish because I’m seriously considering moving abroad for at least a year, and possibly longer depending on whether I come back here to go back to school. I’m shooting for an October departure. I know if I leave without saying anything to her, she would probably be hurt. At the same time, I don’t really want to see her with the way things are right now, and we haven’t talked on the phone or seen each other in person for months.

If you read all of this, thank you so much.