Death My friend suicided last week, i'm numb & sad & all over the place

[mumstheword]

The journey begins ... or continues ... articulating the rollercoaster that is my life
Well I wrote this poem last night.
Thanks for asking :) @Swift
Today I'm feeling overwhelmed and sad at my friends emotional needs and how that's
impacting and putting so much pressure on our friendship.
She clearly wanted more time and support from me today and I wasn't able to offer much at all.
I had two counselling appointments and was rallying for support letters, at them, to get me and my children out of chronically unhealthy situations.
I found it exhausting. I was edgy, a bit flighty and just plain down but still joking lots with my guy friend. I was kinda ranty and whiney at my old uni psych (10 year, but irregular therapeutic relationship) and my 2 year Trauma counsellor cafe appointment, about my long term safe affordable housing battle with my housing service providers ; my needs and frustrations (her T office is still not fixed from major floods a year ago).It's really wet and flood weather again, now, and it would be great if that didn't happen, again. Not so fun, either.:(

I'm just pretty sad, maybe slightly ,very chronically depressed? Not badly though, more physical and much less emotionally than I used to be.

I am so excellently good at faking ok though, and also genuine and honest, at the same time. I honestly can't keep pretending but I'm really good at brave-facing it, for the most part.

Chronic faking is way too exhausting for me, these days.

Lots of numb, sad, joking&colouring in, my cheer-me-up-strategy, which is a drawing I started the afternoon I found out my friend had taken his life features, as a work in progress on my dairyhttps://www.myptsd.com/threads/the-journey-begins-or-continues-articulating-the-rollercoaster-that-is-my-life.80780/page-36#post-1412126

It has lots more colour since I took this.

Also being here helps. I need this when I'm feeling so bereft and overwhelmed and not very safe or comfortable.
Although my life is focused on sticking around safe people, now, most of which are my T support people and my guy friend and children (and you guys :)).

My friend is putting me in a challenged position. I've encouraged.accessing some grief counselling. She said she's was going to be talking to some trained psychologist(s) on a suicide support line.
She wants me close and accessible and I'm getting a bit trigger/stress-memory-perturbed by the reminding of my narcy mum leaning on me similarly after my step dad passed away.
I'm feeling more unsafe in the relationship, more "swallowed up and disappearing again" and I needed to maintain safe boundaries quickly and solidly, so I didn't cave and ring her back after all my counseling, because I was left too drained and exhausted.
I'm feeling guilty about that.
Always a sense of guilt and shame, except when I'm forgetting and being more present and mindfully kind to myself and just feeling the sadness and drained, exhaustion.

Love, creative, quietly grieving, caring, spent but grateful that you asked, thank you @Swift:hug::singing::tdown::headphone::poop::sorry::wideeyed::eek::oops::hug: .

 

[littleoc]

Maybe your newer boundaries will prevent a relationship like the one with your mom... This is definitely different. Of course, it's a bit hard to see that through all the pain EVERYONE must be going through.

:hug::hug::hug:

 

[Freida]

I'm feeling more unsafe in the relationship, more "swallowed up and disappearing again" and I needed to maintain safe boundaries quickly and solidly, so I didn't cave and ring her back after all my counseling, because I was left too drained and exhausted.

So basically a test by the universe to see if you will maintain your boundaries under stress. Which you will. Because it is crucial to you staying healthy. I had to make a couple of those choices -- keep my boundaries and/or lose a friend. And what I finally realized is that my health takes precedence over a friendship. It was so very, very hard and I felt so very guilty over "abandoning" them. But I've done a lot of hard things since I started this journey -- and most of them have ended up as a good thing in my life. And I realized these were unhealthy friendships that were based in drama and stress. Do I miss them? Sometimes. Was it worth it to put my needs first? Absolutely.

 

[Sideways]

I spoke to my T just yesterday about a friendship that is going through a tough patch. My friend recently cut contact with her abusive father and is acting out her abandonment fears, which is pushing my boundaries and triggering memories about the toxic relationship I had with my sister for years.

She encouraged me to use mindfulness, rather than make my boundaries tougher. Her advice (which may, or may not be useful to you), was to use mindfulness to remind myself: this is not my sister, this is simply a friend going through an incredibly stressful time, and I recognise not just the acting-out patterns in her behaviour, but also to get in touch with my human empathy in the moment. The difficult period may take a while, but it will pass. And if I can practice empathy through mindfulness of the here-and-now goings on in the relationship? She said that we may get through it without compromising my own health or values.

Just food for thought. Always remember to be gentle with yourself. Shame is something that you’re carrying- it’s there whether we like it or not until we’ve worked through it with time. Acknowledge it, give it space, but use mindfulness to help you make gentle decisions that are best for you and your needs in the moment. Mindfulness can help make sure that our shame doesn’t make our decisions for us anymore.

Thoughts are with you in this incredibly sad time.

 

[ms spock]

I am so sorry for your loss of your friend @mumstheword you sound like you are going through the usual agonies of what we go through when someone commits suicide, it is really, really hard. We all wish we could have done something more or better.

Mindfulness can help make sure that our shame doesn’t make our decisions for us anymore.

That is a really good way to put it!

Thoughts are with you in this incredibly sad time.

Mine as well!

 

[freebird]

So so sorry mums:cry:. Be gentle with yourself, let the grief be what it is...you've done all you could, being so supportive for your friend...take care of yourself first.

 

[mumstheword]

Thank you @littleoc , @Freida @Sideways , @Disco Dancing Queen and @freebird . I am angry, sad, worried and soooo sad for my bestie. I had a very running around day. A good NIA session, peer support for another friend who is frightened and falling for someone, saw a social worker over my housing crapola, she is writing an advocacy letter for me re rehousing.
Took my youngest daughter shopping for a bag, ranted at her about sexism towards male victims and people who rudely park in bus stops, called my son a "rude bastard" for repeatedly repeating that he couldn't hear me while wearing headphones when I asked him if he wanted a cup of something. I'm a cranky, flighty, irritable be-arch.
I'm pissed at Pete today,I; so rude to not tell how much he was struggling and then kill himself violently.
I'm so upset for my girl, my bestie bud, she truly did not deserve this. She's a good, kind, honest woman who's already been through absolute hell herself. She loved that man, soooo much. So many people did, he was far from unsupported and unloved. He couldn't receive it though.
He's gone and we are left with even more shitty shit to deal with. Nice one Pete.

 

[Sideways]

Anger! Makes perfect sense, so give it space. You have plenty of reason to be angry.

Don’t be afraid to talk about this stuff with your supports and even the kids, yeah? Because anger is part of the deal with grief, with the aftermath of a suicide.

Just with you quietly while you move through this painful space you’re in:hug:

 

[Swift]

Loved the poem. "Shards of ourselves was my fav. Great rhythm and pace.
And I hear you on anger and grief.
At times I'm still pissed that my friend decided to f*ck off and die, eight years later. It's necessary, I think.

 

[mumstheword]

So numb tonight.
My old friend, numbness.
I used to spend my life frozen emotionally, but moving constantly, hyper, hyper, flighty lady.
Between crushing despair and frantic loneliness and the sense of being squished flat.
How about that; I'm no longer a two-dimensional doll pretending to be human.

A cardboard cut-out of a person, on the outside of themselves, looking in.
Locked outside I was,
No one had shown me the way into myself until I got loved.

Now Pete's looking from above and I'm watching my friend thinking, "how can this be? Who's gonna give her the key?"

I'm still trying to move out of survival and into thriving and friends suiciding and not coping emotionally, well it's numbing and dumb, not helping me get there, life's just not fair.

I'm treading water, my children, my daughter's, give me cause to anchor, to recover, their brothers, the girls and me, will be more risk free, if we are gritty and wily, not smiley all the time, while dying on the inside; but taking care of ourselves.

I write coz I've never really been alright in the world.
I'm frightened but a fighter, kinder and refined, also a dirty little shit who lived on the road, homeless and squatting, a grotty, snotty, girl who didn't even feel like a person, more a doll, discarded and broken even before I began to be self-aware, I was embroiled in sordid affairs, before I learnt how to care, for me.

I scare people who see me as wild, a struggler, a primal, disordered dreamer, unpredictable and unfathomable, I'm in part, not a Muggle, I'm witchy, watchy, fringe-dwelling, shamanic and I've been to Hades too, learnt a thing or two about hangin' in and not givin' in.

I hide a lot and when I'm not, I'm unfettered but flighty, a creative collage of damaged identity and splinters and shards from extreme abuse; outside looking in, like the match girl in the snow.
I know frozen and living in permanent shock. I've taken stock,
I'm that girl who's weird from crazy at the start.
I've felt like refuse, garbage, but now I'm harbouring hope and developing gumption, maybe even on the road to redemption; integration.

I'm a guilty-for-being-a-victim, shamed-at-my-disability, diamond-in-the-rough, f*ck I've had it tough, but not as much as many, but, still, I'm still sore and doing poorly.

I got heart though and that's gotta count for something, surely?

 

[Freida]

I scare people who see me as wild, a struggler, a primal, disordered dreamer, unpredictable and unfathomable, I'

Naw--- we are tougher than that. You don't scare me in the least.

I'm a guilty-for-being-a- victim, shamed-at-my-disability diamond-in-the-rough, f*ck I've had it tough, but not as much as many, but, still, I'm still sore and doing poorly. I got heart though and that's gotta count for something, surely?

I'm sorry - - this is so very, very hard. And YES! You have a huge, huge heart that is always there for others. Which makes you much more than you think you are.

 

[Sideways]

I got heart though and that's gotta count for something, surely?

You do. You very definitely have a huge heart. That’s why it hurts so much right now. Keep breathing, move through it one moment at a time.

Still with you.