tldr; i realized that any way you slice it, the feeling might not go away. also, this is a longer one than usual.
Okay, so "Survivor's Guilt" isn't really the term I should use for my predicament, but it's the only one that seems fitting.
In high school was really the first time I'd really paid any attention to the concept and meaning of suicide. I've never experienced those thoughts myself, but someone else in our school did and went through with it. I think I'd already moved back to Canada at this point, but it was really tough to see all my friends and peers mourn over someone we went to school with. I didn't personally know this person, but a lot of my friends did. Sunset photos, memorial photos, memories and throwback photos with their name were all over social media for months. Occasionally I'll still see a few anniversary photos or reminders here and there throughout the year.
My dad fought overseas in the 90s and was in the military for nearly all of my life (I'm 25 now and he retired only a few years ago). He's suffered incredible losses of people he knew, and it keeps happening. I didn't start really noticing/paying attention or appreciating what he was going through until I got older (high school-ish). A lot of his friends had passed from suicide due to PTSD and injuries. Of course it's hard to deal with the loss of someone you knew, but Survivor's Guilt is a very real thing that makes things harder.
* Survivor's Guilt (aka: survivor syndrome, survivor disorder) is a
mental condition that occurs when a person believes they have done something wrong by surviving a traumatic or tragic event when others did not, often feeling self-guilt.
I studied in Ireland for a year when I was finishing college in 2017. Near the end of that first semester in early December, my mom called me. (Background: I had just bought a ticket to travel to Amsterdam just before Christmas and before I flew home for the holidays, and I was also in the middle of exams. Read: I was stressed and tired and excited.) She had that weird, flat tone in her voice where you know something is wrong. She said she'd found out that a good friend of mine had passed away a couple days before by suicide. My heart sank and I went silent. This is the closest something like this has ever hit to home, and I didn't really know how to react. This was a shock, but at the same time not a surprise. My friend had been suffering for a while at this point from mental illness, substance abuse and was under constant pressure from being in the very, very public eye. She had attempted this roughly 11 months prior but was found before it was too late.
I was visiting family in Halifax for the week following New Year's when I heard the news about her first attempt, and immediately reached out to her mom. I just wanted to know what happened, but she gave me the number of the rehab facility my friend was staying in. I will forever be grateful for that gesture. When I remember this call I feel cold, but not like the chills. I don't really know how to describe it. It's a very surreal memory now. She was probably heavily sedated, at least that's what it sounded like. A select few people had this number to reach her (for privacy matters but also because she was a public figure), and she seemed genuinely surprised and happy to hear that it was me calling. She said she never would have expected me to call. We'd been friends since 2007 or so, and I have always held our friendship close to my heart... So of course I called.
We talked for a little while but I didn't know what to say. She sounded like a ghost. She wasn't herself, but of course she wasn't. I don't know what I was expecting out of it. I don't remember anything between finding out about her situation and her answering the phone. It was like a reflex. Even in her (maybe) sedation, she said that she was a "party pooper" for trying to kill herself and promised she wouldn't do it again because "it was stupid", and then she laughed and snorted the way I remembered she would from when we were kids. Aside from this call, the last time we spoke was in May of that year.
In general I'm not really an emotional person. I somehow instinctively push down any feelings and emotions that aren't happiness or anger. After the call with my mom, I just sat there. I knew in that moment I was supposed to cry, but I knew I was in shock. A few days before she'd passed, she did an Instagram Live, and it was obvious (not immediately to me, for some reason) that she'd been under the influence and she was very upset and angry about something but she was all over the place. Something was very, very, very wrong. I can't remember if I reached out or not, but I'm sure I did. She didn't always get back to me and I didn't ever expect her to, for as a public figure she'd get probably a billion messages a day.
I felt (feel) so guilty. Maybe it isn't Survivor's Guilt, but it feels like the right term. I can't quite convince myself that nothing I could have done or said would have changed the outcome, even though this is exactly the kind of thing I'd say to a friend. It's not your fault. Don't feel guilty. There were dark personal things she didn't share with me or that she didn't know when we were close, and those were the things that ultimately took her life. I could've talked to her every day; said different things during that rehab phone call; flew out to visit her when she moved away... She still would be dealing with those things, she'd still be in the public eye, and that pressure would still be too much.
Nine months later, I reunited with her family for the first time in roughly 8 years for her memorial. Even today I don't think I've ever cried over her death. But that day, and the day leading up to it, I had The. Worst. Anxiety. I've ever had in my life. The drive from the city I was in to the town of her memorial felt never-ending when it was only a few hours. There were winding roads, nothing but trees, occasionally the ocean, it was a million degrees, I was hungry with no appetite, I was nauseous, and I couldn't catch my breath. It was a memorial, but it was also the closest thing to a funeral I've ever attended (I know right?). Luckily I wasn't alone. My dad and my sister came with me. They dropped me off at the memorial and hung out close by until it was over.
The guilt has also prompted me to stay closer with her mom, something I'm pretty grateful for. We'd all lost touch a little while after we initially parted ways when I was a kid (military brat life). My friend has two older brothers and a little sister. I feel so protective over her sister for some reason. I always reach out to them on the anniversary and at Christmastime (which I'm sure is the hardest of the holidays given the proximity of the dates), and occasionally throughout the year. This year I found an old home video of the baby shower my mom threw for my friend's mom when she was pregnant with my friend's sister. I remember my friend being there, but somehow she's not in the video at all. I watched it a couple of times and decided that it isn't ours to have anymore, so I sent it to my friend's mom to cherish instead.
Survivor's Guilt is when you've been in some kind of experience where you survived and others didn't. I wasn't in the middle of a war when my friend died, and maybe I wasn't in some kind of accident where I came out alone. But my friend is gone, and I'm still here. That isn't fair. And it isn't right. She was 23. Her life ended at 23, and the rest of us get to live on. How does that make sense? Why is that how things worked out? I'm not wishing to trade my life for hers, but why couldn't we have both?
I message her on Facebook still on birthdays, when I see something that reminds me of her, and when I dream about her or have those days where I miss her a little extra. That, paired with the occasional talks I have with her mom, really helps me. I'll never not miss her, and I can't imagine a time where I'll stop thinking about her, and definitely not ever be over it, but I think I'm mostly okay now.
My thought process in wanting to post this is because it's still something we don't normally talk about. Losing people, even if they're not directly close to you, is hard. It's tough to see people you care about mourn, even tougher when you're the one mourning. In general, but especially in times like those I described and times like today, we need to be kinder to each other. Kinder, gentler, more attentive... Just be there for each other! It's okay to want to ask about what they're feeling. I think people could benefit from talking through things sometimes, and we're often too scared to ask about it (from either side of the coin).
xx, ♡S
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