sannoji
dreaming of flying
- May 4, 2023
- 55
hi everyone. if it's okay i'd like to tell you the story of my friend because i can't stand to think that he's forgotten nowadays. i think he would have liked people to know about and remember him, even if not by name.
we were only friends for a little over a year but he was such a wonderful and interesting person. we met online, through his posts about personality disorders and living with them. i also have a PD, so it's hard for me to connect with people. i find them too smothering and high maintenance, or i find them so distant that i forget they even exist. with him, it was like we knew the perfect amount of distance intuitively. i respected him greatly, too, and he taught me many things which i still use today. i'd like to think i did that for him in return? but maybe my contributions were mostly liking his funny posts. but i don't know. we were good friends.
he was terminally ill, which i knew pretty quickly after i met him. i was allowed on several of his private accounts, where he was so open about everything in his life. chronic pain, mental illness, so many things that come with dying i suppose. honestly, his views on dying probably influenced how i feel about this site. he didn't want people to be sad when he died. he wanted us to accept it and try to remember happy things about him, because death is a natural ending to life, and it sucks but it happens.
still, knowing someone will die some day doesn't exactly prepare you for it as much as you might like…? especially when it comes much faster than you expect. he was supposed to have two or three more years. a complication happened. suddenly he would be lucky to have months. his birthday was just days before mine. he didn't live until then. he never even turned 18. i don't even know when exactly he died because i only knew him online. i knew he would die, especially in these end points where he would talk about hospice, but it still felt so surreal. one week i was sending him photos of my cat, the next week there were no more responses from him.
i was weirdly nonchalant about it at first. after all, he had prepared us for this situation. i would often find myself not even thinking about the fact that he was dead. sometimes i still imagine to myself that he's just taking a break. that his pain got bad so he'll respond when he can think again. it took nearly half a year for it to hit that he was gone and it was horrible. i didn't even know what to do with myself. i'd never lost someone i cared about like that before. i just wanted to die as well.
i attempted suicide a while before he got the news that his life would be even shorter. sometimes i think it's crazy. if i had succeeded, i would have been gone before him. that would have made him real mad, i think. i still want to die. but i guess i'm trying? i'm at least trying to build a life. i'm just still so mad that he didn't get to have that.
like anyone would, even when he practically had an exact deathdate, i still hoped for a miracle. when it hit the month he was supposed to die i entertained myself with thoughts of "well, maybe it isn't as bad as they said. maybe he'll last a bit longer than expected." i thought the world of him. childishly, i viewed him as infallible. an actual miracle would be nothing to him. but we live in the real world and no such thing happened.
it feels strange, actually. to have known someone who was going to die whether he liked it or not while being someone who wants to die. of course, he was that kind of person too, to an extent. a staunch supporter of euthanasia. i'm angry that he probably had to die in pain. even if he was in hospice, even if they were trying to ease that pain, i'm angry that he didn't get the choice. because he was too young i guess. i miss him. he was a great loss to the world. sometimes i wonder if i'm that sort of person too, but it wouldn't matter either way.
i hope someone remembers him. his accounts are all deleted now. he really doesn't exist online any more. i didn't know his family. but i'd like to think that at least a few people other than me could remember him and who he was. i hope he rests well.
we were only friends for a little over a year but he was such a wonderful and interesting person. we met online, through his posts about personality disorders and living with them. i also have a PD, so it's hard for me to connect with people. i find them too smothering and high maintenance, or i find them so distant that i forget they even exist. with him, it was like we knew the perfect amount of distance intuitively. i respected him greatly, too, and he taught me many things which i still use today. i'd like to think i did that for him in return? but maybe my contributions were mostly liking his funny posts. but i don't know. we were good friends.
he was terminally ill, which i knew pretty quickly after i met him. i was allowed on several of his private accounts, where he was so open about everything in his life. chronic pain, mental illness, so many things that come with dying i suppose. honestly, his views on dying probably influenced how i feel about this site. he didn't want people to be sad when he died. he wanted us to accept it and try to remember happy things about him, because death is a natural ending to life, and it sucks but it happens.
still, knowing someone will die some day doesn't exactly prepare you for it as much as you might like…? especially when it comes much faster than you expect. he was supposed to have two or three more years. a complication happened. suddenly he would be lucky to have months. his birthday was just days before mine. he didn't live until then. he never even turned 18. i don't even know when exactly he died because i only knew him online. i knew he would die, especially in these end points where he would talk about hospice, but it still felt so surreal. one week i was sending him photos of my cat, the next week there were no more responses from him.
i was weirdly nonchalant about it at first. after all, he had prepared us for this situation. i would often find myself not even thinking about the fact that he was dead. sometimes i still imagine to myself that he's just taking a break. that his pain got bad so he'll respond when he can think again. it took nearly half a year for it to hit that he was gone and it was horrible. i didn't even know what to do with myself. i'd never lost someone i cared about like that before. i just wanted to die as well.
i attempted suicide a while before he got the news that his life would be even shorter. sometimes i think it's crazy. if i had succeeded, i would have been gone before him. that would have made him real mad, i think. i still want to die. but i guess i'm trying? i'm at least trying to build a life. i'm just still so mad that he didn't get to have that.
like anyone would, even when he practically had an exact deathdate, i still hoped for a miracle. when it hit the month he was supposed to die i entertained myself with thoughts of "well, maybe it isn't as bad as they said. maybe he'll last a bit longer than expected." i thought the world of him. childishly, i viewed him as infallible. an actual miracle would be nothing to him. but we live in the real world and no such thing happened.
it feels strange, actually. to have known someone who was going to die whether he liked it or not while being someone who wants to die. of course, he was that kind of person too, to an extent. a staunch supporter of euthanasia. i'm angry that he probably had to die in pain. even if he was in hospice, even if they were trying to ease that pain, i'm angry that he didn't get the choice. because he was too young i guess. i miss him. he was a great loss to the world. sometimes i wonder if i'm that sort of person too, but it wouldn't matter either way.
i hope someone remembers him. his accounts are all deleted now. he really doesn't exist online any more. i didn't know his family. but i'd like to think that at least a few people other than me could remember him and who he was. i hope he rests well.
