Pam, in my opinion a true or good friend is one who is willing to tell you the truth of how THEY feel and see the situation. (Even if they are totally wrong and misinformed, that's not the point) A good friend is honest even if they know it will hurt you.
It seems as if she's been supporting you a lot. She's been there for you when you went through all the ups and downs in trying to diagnose this problem.
Pam there is no such a friend as a perfect friend. A non-friend would just stop contacting you, just stop answering your calls and messages and just fade away. This friend of yours LOVE you! She is willing to face this VERY DIFFICULT situation and open up towards you. This seems to me like a good and true friend.
Yes I know her letter hurts DEEPLY
Both of you are hurting, she is hurting as well. She is loosing a good friend, you, to a weird illness. Even though it may not be a match to the hurt you have to face every day in living with this illness, just know that she is hurting as well.
My opinion would be to first decide if you want to work on keeping this friendship, your friend is willing, otherwise she would've just faded like I said before. And if you decide that she is worth the effort, then this will be my device:
- Start by writing a letter of apology, or take her for a "cup of coffee and cake" and tell her how sorry you are for hurting HER. This sounds like stupidity and most will say she owes you an aplogy, but I urge you to apologise first to her. And after the apology be open and tell her that her letter hurt you a lot, she will then aplogise hopefully as well and you will re-unite in tears and love.
- Decide on not telling her everything that is going on in your life, yes this is difficult and you need people who could listen to you, but she is currently overburdened by your sickness. My spouse often becomes overburdened by my sickness so I only share with her "up to her capacity", for the rest I have other friends with which I share my burdens and by sharing a little with everyone my burden is lighter and I don't overburden my spouse or a specific friend.
- TRY to be the old fun Pam she is mentioning, this doesn't mean do all the things you did in the past, you can't that is obvious. It just means decide beforehand that you are going to be sensitive to her needs and that you are going to try and fulfill her friendship needs as well. Try and figure out her friendship needs, you may want a friend who listen with love and care to your troubles, but she may be looking for someone who'm she can relax with and forget about all the troubles of the world and maybe not talk about all the hardships of life, just an example and not necessarily the case but I hope you get my point.
I hope this is of some help. PLEASE know that I am not choosing her side, I am just REALLY trying to give my unbiased opinion and be of some help.
Good luck with this!! (And apologies if my english is kind of funny, it's not my home language
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