In December a friend of mine died. Let's call her Liv. She was the first girl I ever told "I love you" to back in 6th grade, and I think for the rest of my life since I never did stop really loving her, and from 6th grade through around the second year of High School we were very close friends. I think the last time we saw each other was in 2011 or so. I forget. She was, in the years we were close, my hero, almost like a rockstar. She was someone larger than life and everyone loved her. She dealt in her last few years with heroin addiction and ultimately died of it. She got to the point where she was hooking to support her habit. She and I had had a renaissance in our friendship in early 2016, we were talking all the time, making plans to hang out and go to AA meetings together, she shared a lot with me in this brief period where we were talking almost daily, but I felt she could be doing better with her life than hooking and we had disagreements and fell out. It wasn't a bitter falling out - we kinda just stopped talking. In the last week of her life I felt compelled to write her for some reason I still can't explain. For the first time in our entire friendship I wished her Happy Thanksgiving. I went out of my way to wish her Happy Birthday an entire day beforehand through text and the last time I wished her Happy Birthday was years prior. The morning of her last day I made a Facebook group for a Christmas party I had planned and went to invite her, had this weird split second feeling "she won't come" but invited her anyway. I wanted to really become close with her again.

The next day - a week after her 26th birthday - she died. Overdosed. She was found in her room, sitting upright with the needle still in her hand.

I went on a two month bender afterward abusing pills and alcohol. I had odd experiences with her lover (she was gay), her lover got me high with her and had me channel her spirit and then promptly dumped me afterward because she said I had too much of "Liv's darkness" inside me.

Most of her friends are heroin addicts either actively or in recovery - I've never used heroin. I figured if I couldn't save her, I'd try saving them. One of her closest friends she had met in a sober house I befriended and began falling for until it became that she just used me for drug money - lying, telling me this whole story to hide the fact that the money I was loaning her was for drugs. That was in March.

Ever since, really, the entire year I've just kinda been in a dull numbness. I don't even actively miss Liv. I don't really feel anything. No libido. No sense of any deep joy in most things, even when I'm having fun there is just this underlying emptiness under the surface.

I don't know what stage of grief this is and I wish she was still here to talk to. I wish she could help me help the people she cared about. Or that we could just have a little chat about anything. I kinda resent her for dying the way she did, right as we could've become close again too. She'll always be a beautiful 26 year old. She had the last laugh in a way.

Sorry if I'm talking over you, but lemme just say that I've been worried for a long time about what if this kinda sheesh happened to me. I have somehow avoided people super-duper close to me dying on me, but I already react to mild problems as if they were the end of the world, so I'm worried about what if this happened to me.

I found family and friend support warm and welcoming over the years when dealing with grief. Listen to them, they have been through it before if you found yourself going through this for the first time.

In December a friend of mine died. Let's call her Liv. She was the first girl I ever told "I love you" to back in 6th grade, and I think for the rest of my life since I never did stop really loving her, and from 6th grade through around the second year of High School we were very close friends. I think the last time we saw each other was in 2011 or so. I forget. She was, in the years we were close, my hero, almost like a rockstar. She was someone larger than life and everyone loved her. She dealt in her last few years with heroin addiction and ultimately died of it. She got to the point where she was hooking to support her habit. She and I had had a renaissance in our friendship in early 2016, we were talking all the time, making plans to hang out and go to AA meetings together, she shared a lot with me in this brief period where we were talking almost daily, but I felt she could be doing better with her life than hooking and we had disagreements and fell out. It wasn't a bitter falling out - we kinda just stopped talking. In the last week of her life I felt compelled to write her for some reason I still can't explain. For the first time in our entire friendship I wished her Happy Thanksgiving. I went out of my way to wish her Happy Birthday an entire day beforehand through text and the last time I wished her Happy Birthday was years prior. The morning of her last day I made a Facebook group for a Christmas party I had planned and went to invite her, had this weird split second feeling "she won't come" but invited her anyway. I wanted to really become close with her again.

The next day - a week after her 26th birthday - she died. Overdosed. She was found in her room, sitting upright with the needle still in her hand.

I went on a two month bender afterward abusing pills and alcohol. I had odd experiences with her lover (she was gay), her lover got me high with her and had me channel her spirit and then promptly dumped me afterward because she said I had too much of "Liv's darkness" inside me.

Most of her friends are heroin addicts either actively or in recovery - I've never used heroin. I figured if I couldn't save her, I'd try saving them. One of her closest friends she had met in a sober house I befriended and began falling for until it became that she just used me for drug money - lying, telling me this whole story to hide the fact that the money I was loaning her was for drugs. That was in March.

Ever since, really, the entire year I've just kinda been in a dull numbness. I don't even actively miss Liv. I don't really feel anything. No libido. No sense of any deep joy in most things, even when I'm having fun there is just this underlying emptiness under the surface.

I don't know what stage of grief this is and I wish she was still here to talk to. I wish she could help me help the people she cared about. Or that we could just have a little chat about anything. I kinda resent her for dying the way she did, right as we could've become close again too. She'll always be a beautiful 26 year old. She had the last laugh in a way.

Why did she start her habit in the first place?

Why did she start her habit in the first place?


I don't know. She always had, in retrospect, a hidden pain which she hid with this amazing, in control personality, a tough side. She was not one to let vulnerability show all that much, much less speak of it. From what I understand, she was addicted to Xanax and went into a sober house which was in a bad neighborhood and was introduced to Heroin there. From what I also have been made to understand, people who are in pain like she was turn to Heroin because it's cheaper and easier to acquire than Xanax and the like. I was told by her lover that she was sexually abused as a child and that her parents allowed the abuser to remain in their lives and sort of turned a blind eye to what he did. Perhaps that is where it began, the pain, if that story was true. All I know is is that she put up a very tough front and cared more about other people than she did herself. If you spoke to her I don't think you'd ever have suspected she was as in pain as she was. I know I didn't.

You have to forgive me, but I'm talking about stuff both two years ago and a decade prior and it is really all a blur.

Grief is a strange animal. It hits everyone differently. There is no right or wrong way to grieve. Everyone grieves in his/her own way.

I hate when people say "Get over it!" You NEVER get over it but you learn to deal with it, to live with it. I have learned that I will ALWAYS carry my grief with me for the rest of my life. It is who I am now. And it does rear its ugly head when I least expect it. I will hear a song or somebody will say something and the waterworks will start once again.

For me, writing helps. I'm sure most people here know that I keep a journal. It really helps me. It gets my feelings out and I don't have to worry about offending anyone or if my words will come back to bite me because NO ONE reads it but me (not even my husband).

There are grief support groups out there. Like Philip said, friends & family can help.


My condolences.


Cat

Grief is a strange animal. It hits everyone differently. There is no right or wrong way to grieve. Everyone grieves in his/her own way.

I hate when people say "Get over it!" You NEVER get over it but you learn to deal with it, to live with it. I have learned that I will ALWAYS carry my grief with me for the rest of my life. It is who I am now. And it does rear its ugly head when I least expect it. I will hear a song or somebody will say something and the waterworks will start once again.

For me, writing helps. I'm sure most people here know that I keep a journal. It really helps me. It gets my feelings out and I don't have to worry about offending anyone or if my words will come back to bite me because NO ONE reads it but me (not even my husband).

There are grief support groups out there. Like Philip said, friends & family can help.


My condolences.


Cat


Thanks.

I wish all of you had gotten the chance to know her. She was a truly amazing human being.

I dealt with grief when my brother had passed away 23 years ago, I have a friend who knew my brother, Him and My Brother both went to the same vocational program and later on that's when I met him in another program and Him and I have been good buddies for 25 years now. His Mother passed away a year after My Brother had passed away so we both have had things to talk about.

I found family and friend support warm and welcoming over the years when dealing with grief. Listen to them, they have been through it before if you found yourself going through this for the first time.

Excellent advice.




Grief is a strange animal. It hits everyone differently. There is no right or wrong way to grieve. Everyone grieves in his/her own way.

I hate when people say "Get over it!" You NEVER get over it but you learn to deal with it, to live with it. I have learned that I will ALWAYS carry my grief with me for the rest of my life. It is who I am now. And it does rear its ugly head when I least expect it. I will hear a song or somebody will say something and the waterworks will start once again.

So true.



For me, writing helps. I'm sure most people here know that I keep a journal. It really helps me. It gets my feelings out and I don't have to worry about offending anyone or if my words will come back to bite me because NO ONE reads it but me (not even my husband).

It often helps me to write it out as well. O0

Everybody deals with grief in their own way.

My way of dealing with it when my grandparents both died in 2007 and 2014 was to not go outside and socialize with people because I didn't really feel especially social with anybody so I just took to Facebook.

Im so sorry Bones......

Everyone deals with it differently....... Some people go on years and cant get over it..... Its OK......... Whatever helps YOU my friend!


Peace and love to you http://i59.tinypic.com/72tuzr.g

My friend whom I've known for 25 years, his Mother passed away in 1996 but he was adopted and that wasn't his real Mother so he hasn't a clue of what happened to his biological Mother in 1973. He didn't deal with grief well, he gained weight, drank and smoked a lot so it actually took a toll on him a lot, in other words he just didn't care about his physical well being. :(