I think I've lost more people this way than most. When I was in my teens, a neighbour on our street hanged herself. A family friend jumped off the Severn bridge, and a guy I worked with at my part time job also hanged himself the following year. I was affected by all three deaths in different ways, but because they weren't in my immediate circle, the sadness didn't knock me off my feet.
In my twenties, shit got real. One of my close circle of friends ctb on the London underground. That was awful, I was shattered. We were a friendship group built on a foundation of mental illness, having all met in hospital or in treatment. It rocked all of us massively, three days later my best friend attempted but survived and was sectioned and hospitalised. We all sort of muddled through, I went back to work but would go to the hospital most evenings afterwards to visit my best friend. She spent most of the next year on a section 3, then in the July, she was successful in her ctb. She was inpatient at the hospital when she died, they were supposed to be checking on her and they failed her. I thought she was safe there, so it caught me off guard. At the time it was the hardest thing I'd ever had to deal with in my life. I was a mess. Some days I'm still a mess when I let myself think about it.
In terms of how I feel about it, it changes all the time. Losing my best friend to suicide is the weirdest type of grief. Some days the sadness was all encompassing. Some days I was so angry with her, for leaving without me, for leaving at all. You can't really be angry when someone with a terminal illness dies, not with the person themselves anyway, but I was furious at her for ctb. Other days I was jealous that she had escaped life, been brave enough to leave. Nowadays, even though I'm still sad that my best friend isn't here, since covid hit I'm actually glad that she ctb when she did. The pandemic would have destroyed her, the chaos, the lockdown, the total lack of normality, the threat of the virus. She would have really struggled. So I'm somewhat glad that she didn't have to deal with all that.
After she died, I spent some time at a crisis house. I met a woman who I suppose you could say filled the gap my best friend left. She was an amazing human, kind, intelligent, thoughtful, hilarious. In hindsight, I should have learned my lesson by then. We established a close friendship, I fell in love with her accidentally. She was a whirlwind of magnificent, beautiful chaos. We slept together, but I was in a relationship already, it didn't work out. We stayed friends, but always had a special connection. She ctb just as covid hit, Feb 2020. I'm still trying to come to terms with losing her.
I don't make the effort to make friends anymore. I don't want to lose any more friends. Even the others in that friendship group I don't speak to anymore, it's too painful. And since I intend to ctb myself, I don't want to fuck up any more people than is necessary. Sorry this turned into a bit of a life story sized reply. Life's a bitch.
