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hermholland · 2 years

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Before I start, I hate how self-indulgent this whole thing is. I make a pathetic attempt to disguise the self-indulgence by shrouding it in my long-lasting grief over the loss of someone I loved, but it doesn't work. Anyway.

13 years is a long time to be without someone, and anyone would change a considerable amount in such a time, even if the act of losing that person wasn't in of itself an extremely transformative experience.

A very dear and intimate friend of mine took their own life 13 years ago today. She knew me better than almost anyone at the time and I always found comfort in her company, reassurance in her view of me, and strength in her support of me. When she passed my whole world came crashing down far more than I could ever have realised at the time. As anyone who has experienced remotely similar grief will know, such a thing changes a person, but it's only in recent years that I've begun to understand what sort of a change there was.

For a long time now I've found myself questioning whether I really am still grieving or whether I'm just finding comfort in wrapping myself in a blanket of a sort of untouchable sadness. I think about how long ago it was and wonder how much of my memory of her is still true to the person I knew, or whether it's more like a memory of a memory that's been distorted by repeated recollections (like a glint of light on a printed photograph captured digitally, then repeatedly re-rendered until it is a mere a streak of white that's become a fact of the image that was never there). What am I remembering when I think of her? Am I remembering her, or just the idea of her that I've established over years of longing? Do I really have any right to still be mourning her passing after all this time, when I now cannot remember the sound of her voice without the use of recordings? Is this a fabricated sadness?

Although when I type this next thing out it seems really obvious and like I should have known this from the start, that doesn't change the fact that this is a new revelation to me: I've come to understand recently, through reflecting on how this loss changed me, that the passing of my friend was a Traumatic Experience and that I'm not just dealing with an extended period of sadness and grief, but that I am living in my Post-Traumatic Self. I read somewhere that even Emotional Trauma changes a person physically, and so it's hardly surprising that I feel like an entirely different person in the wake of this. I worry about whether or not I've made this sadness a fact of my existence on purpose, but I think the truth is that it already was a fact of my existence, albeit my Post-Trauma Existence, and so it's not really a matter of whether I've manufactured that myself or not. I feel guilt about an imagined manufacture of my emotions, but I wonder if that's not just my low self-esteem finding excuses for further self-loathing.

Anyway; the point in all this was supposed to be about how this loss changed me as a person, because there's a point I wanted to, essentially, journal my way through.

My friend knew me extremely well, and even when we'd gone for long periods not seeing one another when we then did see eachother she could always see through everything to my core and understand who I was and what I was feeling (even, and sometimes especially, when I couldn't). It meant a lot to me that she thought highly of me, because I adored her. Even when we weren't getting on she was a Very Special Person in my life. So now, 13 years on, with all of the things that have happened in my life and shaped me as a person, I wonder what she would think of who I am now. I wish I knew if she would still approve of the man I am, because I sure as hell don't. I look at the person I am and I feel shame, disappointment, revulsion, and hopelessness (among a great many other feelings I don't have the courage to look at). With all that, I know it would mean the world and more to me if I knew she would still be there for me when I can't even stand to look at myself and what I've let myself become. Because while she was alive, even when I hated myself she could still love me, and that made it less difficult to see that there was something redeeming about myself.

The last time she saw my mother, they were in the car where she was getting a lift to the train station to go home without me in the car. Her and I had had an argument where I was absolutely in the wrong and had pretty much stormed off and left her with my mum. She had always gotten on really well with my family, and so the argument (especially because it was my fault) was no reason for there to be any awkwardness with her and my mum. And despite the fact that I'd been an odious human being to her minutes before this, when she got out of the car, one of the last things she would ever say to my mum was "Take care of him". Even after I was horrible to her she was able to see past my faults and want the best for me.

So today, on the anniversary of the day she took her leave of this world, I am wondering who she'd be now, what she'd think of who I have become, whether we'd still be friends, and I wish I could have her with me, to cut through all the poisonous voices in my head like she always could, to reassure me that I'm not the cancer I believe myself to be. Of all the people I've ever known, hers is the voice and opinion I wish for the most.

And I know that what I've basically just said (at length) is "I wish she was still here so she could make me feel better about myself", which to me sounds like only wanting someone around for what they can do for you, and I hate it.

#personal #mental health #mental illness #tw selfhate #tw self sabotage #tw self worth #tw self image #tw self pity #tw suicide #tw depression #tw grief

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