To scale back on friendship?

[BulletFox]

We've been friends for 20 years, I think things have changed now however.

He is an absolutely lovely person and I'll always want him as a friend (it's part of a wider friendship group) but I had wondered for the last months if I should 'retire' the friendship; not sure if any of my friends really know how ill I am, I'm a satellite friend at present.

I was trying to zone out anyway but he just texted me and for the first time since I've known him I feel uncomfortable about responding

Can you write more about why you feel this way? And how you feel your illness has impacted on it?

Well he's been really brilliant over the years but I'm feeling like I'm a burden. He honestly doesn't ever make me feel like I am until recently when I started to think about detaching.

I deliberately decided not to contact him individually again 3 weeks ago (he's always my friend, no issue about that, I worked with a really lovely group of people and we're all friends) until he texted tonight and felt bad about feeling uneasy about responding.

I will do tomorrow, I have to, now I'm starting to feel bad about not being there