My best friend of 20 years killed herself. I knew she was going to and I could have stopped her, but I didn’t. To deal with the guilt I’ve convinced myself that she is still alive, but that she is angry with me and refuses to speak with me. I’ve been telling myself this lie for the last two years. I had a dream in which she said that my dishonesty was too much for her and that she couldn’t be my friend anymore. She kept telling me that I needed to talk to a therapist. I am not a dishonest person other than the fiction I’ve had to create surrounding her death in order to deal with it. It was painful and confusing. Having that dream didn’t help. I did go to see a therapist a few months after she died, but I told him the story that involved her still being alive because that’s what I was trying to convince myself of at the time. Recently I made the decision that it is time for me to accept what really happened. I found a photo of her tombstone posted on a memorial site online, and it feels strange, but freeing to accept this alternate reality. I’ve never had anyone close to me die before. Furthermore, no instances in which I had ever felt as though a death were my fault. I am a good person, but each and every time I think of her, I feel as though I have done something wrong. Its time to let that go. It is not my fault. She was unwell. She had mental issues. Her death was not my fault.
