Mental health advice - tips for moving on/letting go?

[Anonymous]

I've recently ended a friendship after knowing them for 8 years. It's been about a month and a half, and I've seriously been mourning over it like it was a romantic relationship and I don't know if that's normal or not lol. I've been depressed and I'm constantly going over what I could've done differently and how my actions might've been perceived in a way I didn't mean them and wondering if that, perhaps, contributed to our issues.

I genuinely feel bad because I don't know what exactly made everything go so bad with our friendship. It makes me really sad because I've known them so long and I do care about them a lot but I know it's the right decision to step away from our friendship as it was becoming toxic for me. I just can't stop obsessing/analyzing over what went wrong and how it could've been fixed. I've let myself do it since our "break-up" as I thought it was part of the healing process and I've kind of just let myself feel/do what came naturally, but now I feel like I may just be perpetuating the feelings/situation.

Where's the line between dealing with and processing emotions vs. perpetuating them? & does anyone have some tips on what I can do to feel better about everything? I'd really appreciate it. The whole thing has been interfering with my life and I don't want it to have that power anymore.

[NerdInDenial]

The hardest part about long friendships is the letting go. They've been a part of your life for a very long time. The lessons learned here is to think about the small issues that built to the big ones. Similar to an empire, you don't lose a long and deep friendship to shallow things. 8 years a long time. It must have been something that you and your friends deeply disagreed about. The good news is you got rid of the toxicity that was in your life. It's always ironic that the things you love most can hurt you the most. The first step is to get rid of things that remind you of them. The next step is to talk about how you feel to people you trust or just rant to a family member or rant on here. The third step is you need time. Take it hour by hour and day by day. Before you know it, you won't feel so depressed about it anymore. Focus on your tasks and your life and not worry about what they think or worry about them.