I'll be 23 in five days, and seven months ago to this day my best friend since I was 10 died very unexpectedly. We had a very unique relationship (obviously). We were both very smart (in common sense terms but also school-wise) yet for different reasons we were both incredibly rebellious and saw the world through a very distinctive lens. When we were 15 we got into the punk subculture - it was only us that were into it among all our mostly nonmutual friends - and we also began experimenting a lot with drugs, mostly OTC stuff. As we grow up we both got clean (relatively speaking) and went down different professional paths. He even moved four hours away to a different state to work at a Honda plant where he excelled to line supervisor/manager at the age of only 21. Meanwhile I stayed where we had grown up going to our town's local liberal arts college where I graduated this year with honors. We saw each other less, but we would still see one another, usually once every 4 to 6 weeks. Our relationship never changed and we could always pick things back up. I last saw him at the graduation party my parents hosted for me exactly one week before he died. There's really nothing I would have changed about our interaction that day - we had a great time like always and connected on our usual level. Anyway, his death came at a weird time. No one saw it coming (not sure how he died but it was something natural - he has been diabetic since he was 8 or 9 and I'm almost certain it was kidney failure or something relating to the diabetes). His funeral took place the day I was supposed to fly to Cuba as part of a last hurrah study abroad experience through my university. I of course got a new flight, but the next month I spent in Cuba allowed me not to think about it much. I got back though and my girlfriend (a current senior at my undergrad) and I lived together for the remainder of the summer until I moved 2 hours away to go to law school in August. I began to see her not as my girlfriend but as my new best friend and that's when our relationship deteriorated. We had never fought up to that point but then we began to. We broke up in late August, I withdrew from law school in October, and we got back together and tried to work things out but we would just fight more. The last time I saw her (earlier this month) I had to call campus police on her (no one got into any trouble and that wasn't my intention). Anyways, I just feel hopeless and without any guidance. I feel like a shell of a person. Because of my friend and mine's very rebellious attitudes, we were very countercultural. While we both adjusted to mainstream society, he never really opened up to anyone else, while I became somewhat of a social butterfly. Since he died, I literally have no friends of his that I can talk to about him as he had none except for me. My reaction has been to withdraw as much as I can from everyone and everything. I'm living with my parents right now, I sleep as much as I possibly can, and I've become an alcoholic. My friend was the only person I knew that I could tell literally anything to and with him gone I feel emotionally and spiritually neutered. I go out of my way not to see people I know (because I know I can't open up to any of them like I did my friend) and everyday I hope that I will die. I've come close to killing myself once during this time but I can't go through with it since I don't want to leave that pain on my family. Instead, I hope and pray everyday that when I go to bed I will die of natural means, or that when I go driving I will get into a car accident. I also decided that the next step I'll take career wise is to become a cop (hoping that that can get me killed). What I'm doing is a long drawn out natural self-inflicted death. I don't feel like a person anymore and therefore I have no desire to continue living. I was also seeing a shrink after I left law school but it didn't help me like seeing a shrink had helped me during past troubles in my life. The only other thing I think I can do is to find some sort of grief support group. I have no idea anymore.
Your friend would probably want the best for you. The best way you can honor his life and your friendship is to pull yourself out of the nose dive. It's good that you had such a good friend, but bad that you are having such a hard time going on without him. I suppose that you could write him an imaginary letter. You could visit his grave. In the long run, you have to let go. Find new relationships while not being dependent on them. My guess is that there might be a family member, or someone that you don't know about that is also grieving your friend. Connecting with them might be helpful to you in the grieving process, and helpful to them as well. Please get off the sauce. You might want to check out www.suicideforum.com to talk about some of these issues. You might want to check out "Curing Depression Naturally with Chinese Medicine" by bob flaws. Going on anti-depressants might be good at least in the short term if you are still feeling suicidal. Hope that things can get better soon!
