Dear Mandy,

I need your advice about something, and it’s important that I talk to someone for help because it’s brought me a tremendous amount of pain.

I have a close friend who I have loved like my own family member. But we had a fight and she now wants nothing to do with me. She blocked my e-mail address, my phone number, and she has me blocked on Twitter as well.

She has said some hurtful things to me that I can’t forget. I’m heartbroken and this whole situation has made me crazy. I try to keep contacting her because I want to forgive her, but it’s so hard to do that if she doesn’t even care that I’m hurting.

How can I make the pain stop? I don’t know what else to do. I’ve lost sleep and even my appetite about the situation. How can I move on and forget about her?

~F

Dear friend,

I’m so sorry you’ve going through such a hard time and that you’ve lost this friend who meant so much to you.

The truth is, sometimes we just simply don’t get closure when a relationship or friendship such as this one ends. Sometimes we have to create our own closure in order to find the peace we need to move on.

First of all, I would say that right or wrong, this friend has made it clear that she does not wish to continue communicating with you – so as difficult as it might be, I would stop all attempts to reach out to her. Then I would sit down and write down all of the feelings and pain and heartbreak you’ve experienced from the loss of this friendship. Get it all out on paper. You can even frame it as a letter to this friend if it makes you feel better, but don’t send it to her. It’s not for her benefit. It’s for yours.

I’ve found that sometimes just pouring all my feelings out in the form of journaling, even if no one but me ever sees it, helps me work through the confusion and the sadness and brings me a feeling of finality that the person who hurt me couldn’t give me.

Finally, I would let it go. I would physically say out loud: “I am letting go of this person and the pain and hurt they caused me. I am releasing them back to God and trusting that He knows who is meant to be in my life and who isn’t.” There’s a great quote by Pastor Rick Warren that says: “God sometimes removes a person from your life for your protection. Don’t run after them.”

You never know what is going on with this friend or what kind of greater pain she might have caused you down the line had she remained in your life. I am convinced that when someone is removed suddenly from our lives, it’s less about their rejection and more about God’s protection.

Choosing to let this friend go won’t happen all at once. You’ll have to do it every day … until one day, you’ll wake up, and it will hurt a little less. And the next day, a little less. And then one day, your heart will heal completely. But in the meantime, be patient with yourself.

Allow yourself to grieve it, but then allow yourself to leave it. Start focusing on making new friends, pursuing new hobbies, trying new things.

Open yourself up to new experiences and I promise, new and better friendships will come. And most of all — be the friend to yourself that this friend couldn’t be. When you love and honor yourself, everything else tends to fall into place.

Sending you lots of hugs and positive thoughts!

—Mandy