Blames & Shames

I had a friend who died of drug overdose 3 years ago.

Since that time I've gone through all the usual feelings. Shock. Despair. Grief. Despair.

Going over in my head the same questions. What went wrong? What could I have done to change the outcome? Could I have made his life more meaningful?

3 years ago I thought my friend was clean.

8 years ago he and one of my other best friends had become crack buddies. It was a secret addiction. I only knew that they were forming a closer bond and that I felt more and more left out. My other friend eventually revealed his addiction and moved away to start over.

My friend quit crack too. Just quit on his own like my other friend.

And then 3 years ago my friend died of an overdose of heroin and cocaine. Only a few people know. We were told by the family to tell everyone he died of heat exhaustion. No explanation but I assume it's shame.

Shame is a big story in my friends life.

9 years ago my friend who is now dead discovered a shocking family secret.

He left school in his last semester of University to see his father who was dying. His father revealed to him that he wasn't his father. He was his grandfather. His mother was his grandmother. His older sister was his real mother. She had gotten pregnant as a teen but nobody noticed till she had a baby she was pregnant. She was fucked up. She was on drugs. She was lost. She was rolling with the wrong crowd. So the grandparents decided to take the baby and raise him as a son.

He grew up in a rigid Polish Catholic family. His only ally was his sister, the black sheep of the family. She imparted her values. She opposed the Christian brainwashing. She taught my friend about feminism, anarchy and music. He always looked up to her. He didn't know his sister was his mother.

Looking back, I can see clearly now how my friend changed. Before his "father" died, he was colourful, positive, upbeat. After he was dark, cynical, nihilistic. He never finished University. He stopped planning for the future. He drank too much.

I believe now that he was suffering from PTSD. The night he died I was supposed to hang out with him. We were supposed to see a play. Angels in America. Instead I went camping. My friend played golf and went drinking with a childhood friend of my other friend. My other friend's childhood friend is a drug dealer. The drug dealer gave my friend cocaine and heroin, "for a friend who likes to party". My friend took those drugs and died, alone on his couch.

I saw my other friend recently. I brought up the subject of my dead friend. I told my other friend that I believe our friend who is dead was suffering from a mental illness. Maybe if he got help things would have been different. My other friend told me he had never thought of this... But come to think of it, the night my friend came back from his father's deathbed, and told us his family secret, was the night they started getting heavy into crack.

He said after our friend told of what happened, he had a fourty rock and wanted to party. And my other friend did.

I wanted to know everything but now I wish I didn't know. I love my other friend dearly. But to look in his eyes and hear him tell me that he did drugs with a friend after finding out something like that.

Blame is going round in my head.

I blamed myself for not being there. If I had kept my plans with my friend, he would not have died that night. I'm angry at my other friend too. All the secrets and suppressed truths are coming to the surface. I don't understand how my other friend couldn't see at the time that friend was disturbed, distraught and in serious need of help.

Now I'm depressed again. I have been depressed for 3 years straight. What can I do? What am I good for?

Maybe I need help. I'm not suicidal but life feels hopeless. The deeper the shame and lies, the more difficult it is to see the truth. What can I do? I feel complicit. I know it isn't my fault but I feel guilty. Angry. Sad. Lost. Fuck.

My other friend and I have been not getting along. I want more and he wants less. I want heavy and he wants light. I want sacred and he wants profane. I wish I had his levity. I'm all gravity. The earth is pulling me down. I need a lift. A great big push up under heavy air.

Why is it so hard?

It helps to express. I bottle it up. At the time that my other friend was struggling to gain sobriety I felt I couldn't talk empathetically about our dead friend. My friend was the bad guy. He influenced the drug taking or so I thought. Now I wonder if it was different. My other friend who moved away was the one who was friends with drug dealers. Hung out with drug dealers for years. He thought it was cool how he could go to a bar where his dealer friends were and he would never have to pay for a thing. The dealer friends always picked up the tab. We were young bad-asses then. It seemed cool. Counter-cultural and rebellious. My other friend had hung out with drug dealers so long we didn't notice that his younger brother had also become a drug dealer. And still is.

Am I blaming my other friend for my friend's death?
Am I blaming myself for my friend's death?
Somehow I am, though I know it is wrong.

My other friend is the one who courted drug dealers. He is the one who always had the drugs. I had done cocaine with him a few times. I never brought it. He never had to pay. He was friends with dealers who loved his fun company. Did I enable him to become an addict?

I want to work past the shame, the blame and the hurt. But it's a lonely feeling.

I hear that life is what you make it. What am I making it?
I mope and sulk in a dark mood for days.

I am depressed. I want help. But I am afraid if I talk to a professional it will open up a whole can of worms. I am afraid of being seen as weak and needy. I want to seek the consolation of friends but they don't want to revisit painful memories. I am filled with a sad longing for something long gone.

I am obsessed with the idea I must learn everything about my friends secret addiction so I can learn. I am fearful that if I don't history will repeat itself. Secrets and Lies and Shame.

My other friend has a baby now. He has a wife and baby. He is healthy and happy and I am happy for him.

I don't want to blame him. It isn't fair. But I wonder if he has ever held his baby and thought, my dead friend was once a baby like this, and everyone around him who was supposed to love him lied to him. His very existence was a lie. His true existence was shameful. He buried his shame in drugs. And now he's dead. He was once a baby. Did his real mother (sister) breastfeed him? How tortured she must have been too. She was his best friend growing up. But their relationship was based on lies. And now he's dead.

My life is in a holding pattern. I mourn and feel scorned for it. I have trouble letting go of the pain. I keep searching for the one cathartic act that can help transform my pain. If I can get through this I know I will be a better person.

Just to put the words out is like therapy. It makes it feel better. If I can help someone else that would make all the difference. If I could finally put this behind me I can start living again.

I want to be light and free. I need to unload. This helps.