I don't know how to communicate with this oblivious then-friend about our fizzled-out relationship

I've been friends with this person for around 5 (?) years. Things were okay back when we were in high school, but I guess the discrepancy between our level of understanding towards the closeness of our friendship has already taken its roots back then (for example, she thought of me as a close sister while this idea has never ever come across my mind.)

Soon after we have entered university, she started seeing psychiatrists due to her problems with anxiety and/or depression (not quite yet diagnosed). She told me of those and I tried to be as supportive as possible -- from checking on her regularly on IM to talking her out of her suicidal thoughts or just anything that bothers her. Yet this year or so I feel like I've been treated as more like a counsellor rather than a friend, ie. I was only called for when help is required. Recently, she felt better and more motivated, and I could sense that she wanted to rekindle our friendship.

My attitude towards our relationship was still very confused back when I first made a post about our friendship on this sub months ago, but now I have a solid stance -- I don't think I can put on a charade that I still care about her and that we're still close friends; I don't think I'm prepared for or even comfortable about rekindling this friendship. Right now I seek to communicate and be genuine with her -- after all, the amount of holding-back and lack of communication are the causes of our fizzled friendship and I don't want to make this worse than it already is. There's actually more to this and if anyone reading this finds the above information insufficient to provide a sufficient overview of our relationship for understanding, you can just check my most recent post on another sub from my post history.

The problem is I'm not sure what constitutes an appropriate way of communication without me sounding like an asshole. It's inevitably going to hurt for both of us (maybe more hurtful to her), but I'd rather get this through sooner rather than prolonging the problem. Just now she messaged me if I'm in a bad mood after I gave her a rather indifferent response to her tiny message, and I knew right then that I need to address this. I'm currently stuck, mixed with a bit of apprehension, and would appreciate input of any kind.

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TL;DR: a friend of mine wants to rekindle our friendship while I'm not at all prepared for that. I don't even seek to maintain the status quo of our relationship anymore. I just seek for genuine communication between us, but I'm currently rather lost and a bit scared to make the move.

Submitted April 19, 2019 at 05:38AM

I've been friends with this person for around 5 (?) years. Things were okay back when we were in high school, but I guess the discrepancy between our level of understanding towards the closeness of our friendship has already taken its roots back then (for example, she thought of me as a close sister while this idea has never ever come across my mind.)Soon after we have entered university, she started seeing psychiatrists due to her problems with anxiety and/or depression (not quite yet diagnosed). She told me of those and I tried to be as supportive as possible -- from checking on her regularly on IM to talking her out of her suicidal thoughts or just anything that bothers her. Yet this year or so I feel like I've been treated as more like a counsellor rather than a friend, ie. I was only called for when help is required. Recently, she felt better and more motivated, and I could sense that she wanted to rekindle our friendship.My attitude towards our relationship was still very confused back when I first made a post about our friendship on this sub months ago, but now I have a solid stance -- I don't think I can put on a charade that I still care about her and that we're still close friends; I don't think I'm prepared for or even comfortable about rekindling this friendship. Right now I seek to communicate and be genuine with her -- after all, the amount of holding-back and lack of communication are the causes of our fizzled friendship and I don't want to make this worse than it already is. There's actually more to this and if anyone reading this finds the above information insufficient to provide a sufficient overview of our relationship for understanding, you can just check my most recent post on another sub from my post history.The problem is I'm not sure what constitutes an appropriate way of communication without me sounding like an asshole. It's inevitably going to hurt for both of us (maybe more hurtful to her), but I'd rather get this through sooner rather than prolonging the problem. Just now she messaged me if I'm in a bad mood after I gave her a rather indifferent response to her tiny message, and I knew right then that I need to address this. I'm currently stuck, mixed with a bit of apprehension, and would appreciate input of any kind.TL;DR: a friend of mine wants to rekindle our friendship while I'm not at all prepared for that. I don't even seek to maintain the status quo of our relationship anymore. I just seek for genuine communication between us, but I'm currently rather lost and a bit scared to make the move.