My friend wants to facilitate a reconciliation between myself and another friend. What should I do?

A little more than a year ago, I had a horrible falling out with one of my oldest friends after she got extremely drunk and treated me very poorly. She has a history fo mental illness, has been very unhappy for several years. It wasn’t the first time she had behaved toxically toward me.

That night her jealousy and unhappiness came bubbling to the surface and I decided I needed to take some time (maybe permanently) away from her and focus on myself and my relationship instead.

I’m in my late 20s and have had the same group of childhood friends since I can remember. I was always kind of the main connection point of this special group and was very close to all of them even into adulthood.

This falling out has thrown a wrench into the social group and we’ve all drifted apart a little bit since, with some people trying to stay neutral and some kind of taking sides. The one friend who was there the night of the confrontation understands why I’m upset.

But others who weren’t there seem to think that I’m being too harsh or that my ex-friend’s history of mental illness and trauma excuses her abhorrent behavior that evening. (It’s funny because even though we both had shitty childhoods and lost parents, that excuse only seems to work for her and not me!)

Another close friend of mine gave me a call last night. She’s not very close to my ex-friend but she expressed that she missed us all being able to hang out and get along and that she knows that my former friend also misses me as she’s expressed it to others within the group. I reminded her that I tried to talk to her over email and she rejected everything I had to say and did not seem at all interested in reconciling at that point.

She seems to think that this is something that should and must be smoothed over and wants to facilitate an outing for all of us as friends. I told her that I think this is a bad idea and that while I wish it could be like the “old days” again too, I don’t think that was possible.

Unfortunately, because I’m the more “stable” one, I’m the one who is always expected to be “go along, get along” and in this case, I think that means excusing my friend’s dangerous and insulting behavior that she doesn’t seem to be interested in taking responsibility for.

I’m not sure what to do and this situation pains me immensely. On one hand, I miss my friends (even my ex-friend) very much. I even dream about reconciliation and those dreams feel good. On the other hand, knowing how poorly I was treated, I can’t countenance saying “Oh, everything is cool!” and setting myself up for more abuse.