I’ve been struggling with whether or not to end a friendship that’s been weighing on me for a while, and I could really use some outside perspective.

This friend has been in my life for a bit. We met each other my first year of college, and while there have been good moments, a lot of it has felt draining and one-sided. A lot of the issues we have is due to her feeling like I do not reciprocate her good communication. I agree, I don't. I will go days without texting her back. I'm avoidant, and sometimes texting people feels like a chore to me. I don't really have an excuse for it.

I have tried in the past to explain to her that this one of my unfortunate personality traits and that I don't think I can change it, and that I understood if it was a dealbreaker in our friendship. She got mad for a while and stopped speaking with me, and I understood. But she eventually rekindled our friendship saying that she couldn't not speak to me, and so I thought we were over it.

Unfortunately, I think a lot of the issues we are having are deep seated. She gets jealous a lot when I hang out with other people--it's to the point where in the past I've felt the need to lie about my day if I was hanging out with someone else.

She’s not direct with how she feels, and often will be very passive aggressive and just make indirectly comment about how she feels about things. She'll also recently went off grid completely when her uncle passed away because her family was grieving. i completely understood. But then we she came last week, she started complaining about my lack of communication all over again.

There’s also been a lot of comments that feel insensitive or even hurtful that she's thrown around. For example, I once suggested she consider SSRIs for her depression—something I take myself—and she responded by saying she’d never want to be dependent on drugs. Then there were moments where she would mention that I was bigger than her, and when I expressed hurt, she said not to worry because people like my body type. She's also often wanted to meet in the past because she get's depressed, but on multiple occasions, she's suggested that I drive to her. The first I suggested that we meet halfway, she said it was too long of a drive.

I had already been planning to distance myself because of how all of this was affecting me, but now I feel stuck. She recently told me about a serious neurologic condition that she has been diagnosed with. She doesn't have support at our college other than me and doesn't want to worry her elderly parents. When she first told me, I jumped in my car, left work and drove to her in pouring rain within 30 minutes despite living 20 miles away. We looked at her MRI scans together, and sat in my car and talked despite the fact that I was going through so much stomach pain that day. The next day, she told me she was going to the hospital to get an official diagnosis. I called her all day from work to ask for updates and she didn't respond until I said I would contact her emergency contact. At that point, she told me everything was fine and that they told her all she had was COVID.

I was felt so happy for her, and selfishly less stressed that I could now distance myself without feeling guilty. I pulled away for about 1 week, but she didn't notice until Monday when she sent me multiple messages one after another saying what the hell, at least have the respect to respond, and that she cannot believe that she has to check on me when her life is falling apart. During those messages, in one that she immediately deleted afterwards, she revealed that she does have a neurological condition and that I should feel horrible for not responding in the midst of all this. She additionally said that I should have skipped work to be with her at the hospital because she would do that for people.

I don't know what to do. I don't want to hurt her, I don't want to be a bad person, but I feel so emotionally fried from this relationship. AITAH for still wanting to distance myself?