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My friend is upset that I barely text back and I really hurt their feelings. I apologize and I do feel bad but I really can't help it, texting back is such a daunting task to me for some mentally ill reason idk. I know I'm gonna continue doing it but I don't want my friend to feel like I'm ignoring them on purpose and I'm doing it because I hate them.
I have been both on the receiving end of rarely or never having my texts acknowledged, and having a difficult time knowing how to respond to them (though I always do anyway, out of courtesy). To me, conversations through a screen just don't feel quite as natural or authentic as in person or over the phone, especially if it's just friendly chat and not a discussion. Not sure why, but I find they don't have the same "flow". They also tend to run a bit dry if one person doesn't contribute much. I always had trouble with people whose responses were mostly "yeah" and "lol". How am I supposed to respond to that?
To be honest, I much prefer calling over texting, but so many people around my age refuse to call or answer calls anymore and won't interact outside of texting.
Have you talked with this friend about why texting is not your thing? Maybe there is an alternate way you two could communicate that feels more natural/less stressful to you. I do think it's good to at least acknowledge them when they do contact you, however, even if it is to say you can't talk right now or would rather talk on the phone/another time/etc. If you continously ignore your friends, they will likely assume you don't care for them.
I can relate to that, I ignore messages days sometimes but I have a friend who can take weeks to reply. I don't take it personally though because I know my friend, and when we text it's really long messages to make up for the gap in time.