I never thought I would return to writing a blog, I thought it would be a little phase in my life that came and went. Then all of a sudden, my life took a turn and crumbled underneath me. Now, I feel this weird compulsion to tell my story and how my best friend’s suicide affected my entire life. I think perhaps I have this need to keep people talking about suicide and mental health, and if we talk, we support and if we support.. we’re making even the slightest difference.
I think this might be the first time I truly recount the whole thing and don’t crumble into a million pieces over it. It’s rather amazing the effect of time and healing on the mind and soul.
June 6th, 2016;
The new reality.
Much of that day remains cloudy in my mind. I woke up with a slight hangover, punishment for enjoying myself a little too much the night before, but I know I had the day off. I expected it to go much as any other day in the little, sleepy village I call home. I would wake up, do little with the day, drop into work out of sheer boredom to say hi and do little else with my evening. In a sense, I followed my pattern, I got up, went into work and stayed for a little while. I spoke with my co workers, exchanged banter from the night before, and I acknowledged my regulars. A friend was in for lunch with his girlfriend, I remember that much. I don’t remember the unease in his eyes though, or the discomfort in his voice. At that moment, he was aware of what was to come for me, whereas I had absolutely no clue. He would tell me of this at a later date.
I go home, with one small difference from the usual routine; we’re going to a family friend’s for dinner. I ponder over outfits and what to do with my hair, thoughts that seem so wasted as I look back now. My friend calls me up, asking if I’m almost ready and I say yes. I completely missed the hesitance in her tone, as though she’s trying to read me… She knew, I was oblivious.
When I get into her car, I do notice the delay. She doesn’t take off, nor does she say much and then “Did you hear anything about James?” to which I replied, “Uhm, no? Why?” The rest of it, I must have blocked it out. I think maybe the mind does that as a way of protecting us, feebly but still an attempt. She told me she heard he passed away, no major detail just that someone had heard from someone that he had died. “That’s impossible” As though I genuinely believed he was untouched by the very nature of mortality. How could my best friend even be dead, how could he die? It was not something I was willing to accept. All I know, is that I fell into a trance of sorts, shock, denial and an overwhelming need to have the truth confirmed. What do I do? I can’t message his family, what if it is true? I couldn’t dare. Okay, so I find someone who lives close by, someone who’s in the loop enough to know, but not family. I think within the hour, I had my answer. Confirmed; James had taken his own life. How did I become the last to know?
I called my dad, and then my mum, I told them what I knew and my mum was coming to pick me up from the dinner I decided to go ahead to, because prior I had no confirmation of the fact. Maybe, I was just too afraid to be alone when I found out. I didn’t cry, I had been on the phone to people that were sobbing, I had emotions surrounding the table but I didn’t shed a tear. I thought maybe I just wouldn’t. I had never been much of a crier before that anyway, to the point where people thought I was just cold, a bit of a bitch even. So, maybe it wasn’t in me to cry. I had always been an anxious person though, and I knew my mum’s decision to go straight to my aunts just wouldn’t sit well with me. I was right about that much, I was anxious to the point that I honestly had to war with the urge to get up and just walk home in the darkening evening because maybe that would relieve me of the knot that was wrenching in my chest, or the uncomfortable, and erratic fluttering of my stomach. Both mixed, made me feel as though I was gonna throw up. Eventually I just had to announce “I want to go home”. The rest of the night consisted of sitting in my conservatory on the couch with two of my closest friends, reminiscing and repeating the words over and over again.. “I can’t believe it”.
The next day when I woke up, the world was a different place. It was the end of waking up in my sleepy village and following the suit of normality. My life would truly never be the same again. I can’t begin to explain how lonely it felt to wake up that day, despite having my best friend sleeping beside me as the company I couldn’t have done without. I barely slept, and in a way I wish I hadn’t slept at all because that way I wouldn’t be waking up to a different world. I think it was in the second day I started to know more of the truth; James had killed himself, he’d come home in the night and found his end in a rope. I had no idea how to process that. That being said, I had plenty of time that day to do it, I just couldn’t. The removal would be in the evening, and despite wanting to hide away and ignore it, I knew my first priority was to see his family and figure out how I was to support them. You just think, you’re going to be the pillar of strength and in reality, you can’t be that for everyone all of the time. I was determined though, I would be there when I was needed and a shoulder to anyone. I think I thought I wasn’t deserving of any support myself. The first thought that confirmed this, was as I walked in the door of his home and his father stood to greet me, he hugged me and told me I had been such a good friend to James. I couldn’t comprehend why his father would even want to comfort me, and hearing those words almost stung. What about this situation could lead anyone to believe that I had been a good friend to him? He actually took his own life, and what had I done to prevent that?
That was the moment I think that thought began, and the guilt followed. I honestly thought I would never live with the guilt in the months that followed, I thought it might eat me from the inside out and leave nothing but a shell. My deep, intense grief didn’t begin until the funeral home; the moment we were face to face with James laid out in his coffin. Couldn’t deny it much after that, because the fact of the matter was there, right in front us. He looked so… like himself? I’m not entirely sure what I expected but it was undeniably the person I have loved and called my soul mate. I think it was in that moment that I truly lost it. I was clinging onto his other best friend, and I lost my reasoning. I think I finally understood inconsolable , because nothing in that moment, not a single thing could have calmed me or encouraged me to stop for air. I touched his hand, unsettled by the coolness that radiated into mine. How could he be so cold? How could he leave us like this?
The following days consisted of spending all my time in his home, barely eating, barely sleeping, seeming “okay”, and going through the motions of a wake. The day of the funeral was a blur, and rightfully so. I remember the morning, before we even left his house. I remember warring with myself that I didn’t need to go into that room and say a final goodbye before they closed the coffin. That would have been too real, I think I convinced myself at the time that I was just content but upon reflection, I was so scared. It was only in the last moment, and I mean the last… I was almost running in, and going straight to him. I placed my hand on his, and my forehead against his. I remember thinking to myself, and whispering once or twice.. “Just wake up.. this is dumb, just wake up. We don’t need to have a funeral today”. His brother was the one to pull me away, and almost hold me up as they closed over the coffin. I was inconsolable, and tormented by the fact that his family was once again, comforting me. I didn’t deserve it. I vaguely remember carrying up a gift during the mass; his passport, and losing it again as one of his closer work friends sang “The Parting Glass”. Nothing about that day was easy, but it felt automatic, as though it was never me doing any of it, I was only partially present in my mind.
The true new reality began the day after his funeral, because after days of focusing solely on his death and being submerged in support from every corner, I was finally faced with moving forward. I hadn’t realised it at first, but I had gone into town and it was in seeing that every single person was going about their day as they always had, I realized the world was just going to keep turning as much as I wanted everything to stop. Lying down and giving up was never going to be an option. Everything felt really strange. You know how people talk about the calm before the storm, and how eerie that is? That’s exactly how it felt, this in it’s own way didn’t nothing for my anxiety. I was on edge for weeks after his death.
Initially, after his death, I felt like I had done the most thinking. The most questioning and wondering “what if?” and I honestly felt it could only improve from there. It was the progression of time that made things a lot harder, rather than the first couple of days… weeks. The one thing I could never let go was the overwhelming guilt and feeling as though I had completely failed him. No rational thought or reassurance from anyone could have convinced me otherwise, and from time to time I still think that way. I think that might be something I’ll have to deal with for a long time, wondering if anything I could have done or said would have made a difference, wondering if he had thought to call me or text me, would it have changed the outcome? There’s so many unanswered questions that will forever live in my mind.
The real reason for James suicide was not only a battle with depression, but being harassed for who he was. James was gay, and in my opinion, content in himself. I guess no matter how comfortable you are in your own skin, pack mentality and harsh words will always find a way to weaken the soul. I never could bring myself to hate those boys, it was the only reasonable thing I could latch to in those first few weeks. The one thing I was certain of, was that if I chose to hate them, and spare my thoughts to their actions, the anger would have eaten away at me, and perhaps left me as a rather unpleasant version of the person James had helped me become. That, in itself would have been a disservice to him. I think in time, the universe will find a way to put a right to all this wrong. Maybe, their only punishment will be living with the knowledge of what they’ve done, and maybe it’ll serve them restless nights and endless regret but if they feel any remorse at all, I am content. I don’t think I’ve ever been particularly strong enough to look at it in any other way. Imagine contending with my own guilt, sadness, loneliness, anguish, etc etc.. and being angry at them on top of all that? I couldn’t have managed it all.
The loneliness pushed me into going back to work almost immediately, I think I expected everything to be as normal and that it could be the perfect distraction, but looking back, I realise I took away time that I needed to just not be okay. I was so hell bent on being okay for everyone that I forgot that what happened was not okay, and my behaviour was entitled to reflect this. Everyone was definitely different around me, I think I made them all uneasy, as though I was a ticking time bomb that could just blow at any moment. I guess that was kind of true. I was definitely fighting with myself to just be normal. I think I went back to work way too soon, it was not the distraction I needed it to be. Everyone drew back from me when I needed them the most, and I felt betrayed by it. When I think about it now, I can’t say I would blame them. My best friend committed suicide and they had no idea what they could or couldn’t say to me. They had no idea where I was in the line of emotions and headspace. All they knew, was that I was there working as normal, appearing unsettlingly “me”. I couldn’t blame them for drawing away.
I’ve always heard people say “the nights are the worst” about any given situation, and I always thought this to be so painfully cliche. I guess it became all too relevant to me in the end up. There were nights, not every night, but there were certainly nights that I was wide awake at 4am, clinging onto two clumps of bedding I had gathered into each hand, silently screaming into the duvet. I can’t describe the feeling of those nights other than, pure and utter anguish. It was a relentless pain, a dull and aching pain that burrowed away in my chest and made even something as simple as breathing, a task. Those were the loneliest points; the times were I felt like not a single other being existed alongside me in this world. That feeling certainly altered who I was as a person, before.. I was the girl who was all too content to spend every waking hour alone with her laptop, notebook and thoughts, and now I was craving company. Visiting people I hadn’t seen in ages just to keep myself from spending a second alone. God forbid, I might think about it. I used to sit on for literally hours after a work shift, because I didn’t want to go home to an empty house. The loneliness was absolutely overwhelming.
I remember once, meeting one of my mum’s friends in town, and the words she said to me really really struck me; “You’re too young to be going through this”. I thought about that for a while, I was too young to be going through it, but equally it was never going to be an age issue, the suicide of a loved one is just something that no one of any age should experience. Early on, I resigned myself to the fact that unlike every other form of loss, I would never find acceptance in this. I couldn’t. It would never be this scenario where eventually I could think to myself “It couldn’t have been avoided”, “It was unfortunate, but it happened”, “God has plans for all of us, and some he takes too soon”. Like, no… This was not a factor of the world we live in, it wasn’t a slippery road and and overturned car. It wasn’t a freak accident… It was a choice, his choice. How could anyone accept that?
I can’t say the guilt subsided much either, I just couldn’t shake this feeling of responsibility for what had happened. Not one of those thoughts were rational, but I had somehow managed to rationalise every single one of them. All of a sudden, after about three months, my life was taking another huge turn; I was moving country, moving to a city and beginning a course at uni. I was not ready to start a new life. I pushed myself to do it anyway, convinced myself that I wanted to be as far away from this as I could be. The days leading up to the move were tough. I had began to look at this move as a new chapter in my life, and in beginning a new chapter, I had to put an end to the old one…. the chapter that my best friend existed in. I convinced myself that I was leaving him behind in my old life and I could never bring him with me. It was a fair thought, I couldn’t bring him with me, only his memory. Right after the move, and after my first week in uni, I struggled again. I was suddenly faced with the realisation that I was reaching all these new milestones in my life and he would never be present for any of them. I started a course, so at some point I would graduate? He wouldn’t be there. I would perhaps meet the love of my life and chose to marry them, he wouldn’t be there. I would maybe have some children, he wouldn’t be there. I would make a life for myself and continue to reach all these milestones and he was never going to be present for any of it. All I could think of was how much he took away from us. This was the first time I felt a little mad at him. “Didn’t you think we deserved more time?” I asked him in the little notebook of letters to him I kept. “Why did you take it from us? I don’t want to do all this without you?” At this point, I think my own mental health really started to deteriorate. I wouldn’t acknowledge this for another few months, however. Every thought had become shrouded in negativity and a general hopelessness. I didn’t want to continue with life at all. I didn’t want to know any more of a world that he didn’t exist in.
Outwardly, I was fine. Appeared normal, acted normal, maybe came across a little standoffish but generally, I was fine. Of course, I went on my nights out and a certain level of drunk usually spurred on a sea of tears. I could just be passed off as an emotional drunk. Strangers didn’t care to know, and I certainly didn’t care to tell. I remember the absolute fear of coming home for Christmas, facing a holiday I already didn’t like all too much, and having it now remind me of another loss. That was the beginning of everything being “the first year”, people always talked about the first year, like.. Oh, the first year is the hardest, yadda yadda. (not to be dismissive). I understood it at Christmas, because it was the first Christmas without him. I was painfully aware of his absence. Come to think of it, the first thing probably was the concert we were both going to go to in November; Walking On Cars. That was the first of the first things. It was also officially the last plan we had made together, so … It was another part of him gone.
Suddenly, I’m mid way through my second semester and not coping at all. I think I hit a brick wall after Christmas. I had been indulging in complete avoidance. I must have worked myself into the ground over Christmas just so I wouldn’t have to spare a single thought to it. Then, I was back in Uni, settled in, friends made and for the first time since he died.. completely idle. This was the point in my life I genuinely didn’t think I could get through. Looking back now, it was all just delayed mourning. I hadn’t properly let myself mourn up until that point. My head was a complete war zone and everyone around me had become burdened by it. I was overwhelmed by this new guilt, the one that told me that I was bringing everyone down, ruining everyone’s time and being nothing but a burden. All I could think was “It’s almost been a year, you should be better than this”. I wanted to remove myself from the narrative, I wanted to remove myself completely. The way I was living was something I could only compare to a shell. To get out of bed in a day would be a triumph. To have a day where my anxiety didn’t keep me up at night or keep me in the house, was a triumph. I barely slept, certainly didn’t eat much. Uni was taking a backseat because I honestly couldn’t handle the two. I probably had about two months of just allowing myself to live that way, to genuinely just give up and be done with the world around me. Oh, how I wanted to be done with the world around me.
Then, I came to a decision one day… I don’t want to live like this anymore. I think that the thought of being a burden was nagging at me, and perhaps that was my drive to find some form of normality again. I’m thankful for it now, despite how much it tormented me at the time. Within days, I was seeing a doctor and explaining my situation to her. We discussed methods of dealing with depression and both agreed that I would start on anti depressants and begin counselling, and so I did. I was advised that the first two weeks of anti depressants could make me worse before I could get better, that it was just the exchange of the chemicals in my brain. So, when I was going through possibly the worst two weeks I had experienced to date; screaming into floors and banging my arms so hard against the floor and my desk that they left black bruises all on my arms, I was somewhat assured that it too would pass. It did, and then I found that maybe I was healing. I still had to go through his birthday, then my own and let me tell you.. No amount of medication or counselling could have made those a walk in the park. Especially when you’re logging onto facebook, finding memories and seeing the posts you’d left on each other’s walls for years before that. I was mad at him again, for all he took from us, but I could never stay mad, I was managed to direct my anger back onto myself and how I failed him.
Within days of moving home for the summer, I had the one year anniversary of his death, the last of the “first” things. It, in itself, was a new chapter. The day came and went and we were celebrating a life. The summer past was the first time I had truly began to heal and I genuinely believe it’s because in my second semester of uni, I had truly allowed myself to mourn. I don’t know what kind of avoidance technique I had put in place, or how I had convinced myself it would work, but it only delayed a lot of what was meant to just be. I regret telling myself over and over that I needed to be over it, because a certain number of months had passed. How could I truly get over something like that? I was way too hard on myself at all times and I think I always expected more from myself than anyone else. Every pressure to be okay, and to act fine and to be agreeable and not bring people down was most definitely a self inflicted pressure. I can’t take back how I dealt with the entire thing, and I, for once in my life, don’t blame myself for it. I was never equipped to wake up one day and have my entire world crumble around me, I was never prepared to live with this constant fear that everyone around me was going to leave me too, that no one could have a bad day because maybe it’s a sign, a cry for help like so many I must have missed before. There are things James said to me, that I always knew were hints of what was to come and I hated myself so much for having missed them, but now I know I never knew to look for them. I was naive then and a completely different person.
I have changed, more than once, and in just over a year. I finally feel as though the person I am today is the person I want to continue to be, with all my flaws and broken pieces. I don’t depend on anti depressants right now, not to say I’ll never use them again, I don’t see a counsellor regularly, but I will drop by from time to time. I am healing, and I’m allowing myself the time to do so. I’ll never be okay with the fact that my new reality consists of a world without James, and I’ll never find that acceptance that I so desperately want. I will however, continue to live. I will dedicate so much of my life to him. I will look for him in the faces of strangers, I will look for him in the souls of my friends and I will find him, forever, in all of our hearts. Like a beautiful memory that was just too precious to hold onto. I’m okay with the fact that I’ll forget the sound of his voice one day, I’ll forget his laugh, I’ll forget his walk, and so much more of the physical attributes. I’ll never forget the feeling I had when I was around him, and I think that could possibly sustain me for a lifetime.
And as I sit here, alone in my bedroom in Glasgow, I look to the wall and I see all of our memories, I see his beautiful face and I know that he is forever a part of me, and will always find a way to steal into my life and make himself known. I’m assured that it’s okay to feel all of the emotions that come with grieving, but it’s unnecessary to latch onto them. It’s okay to not be okay at times, and it’s okay to be okay. Each person is so different, and grief takes so many shapes and forms, and no one will ever experience it the same. The main thing I’ve learned is; it’s okay to grieve in the world that keeps on turning. This too shall pass, and healing with come with time, be it a long or a short time. It will come.
This whole time I thought I was the weakest person in the entire world, it turns out.. I’m just really strong.
Help information
If you need help please talk to friends, family, a GP, therapist or one of the free confidential helpline services. For a full list of national mental health services see yourmentalhealth.ie.
- Samaritans on their free confidential 24/7 helpline on 116-123, by emailing jo@samaritans.ie
- Pieta House National Suicide Helpline 1800 247 247 or email mary@pieta.ie – (suicide prevention, self-harm, bereavement) or text HELP to 51444 (standard message rates apply)
- Aware 1800 80 48 48 (depression, anxiety)
If living in Ireland you can find accredited therapists in your area here: