Hi! This is exactly what I've been looking for. <3

[Sylens]

Hi everyone!

I hate to just pop in here and ask for something right off the bat, but, here I go.

This is a very brief description of the situation I'm in: I have a friend (yes, really asking for a friend) who a few weeks ago woke up to her s/o....dead. He overdosed on heroin while she slept. Naturally she is really struggling with this, but her life circumstances are set up in a way that she is trapped in a highly toxic environment that she has absolutely no chance to heal in. Nor can she get out due to many facets of control by her INSANE "parents". She is to the point of pure hopelessness. She told me tonight that she is at high risk of relapse with the intention of attempting to end her life. I've done everything else within my power to help her since her loss, and prior to it, but the things that are out of my control are the same things leading her to want to do it. I don't know what else to do. No one she knows can relate to her, and I earnestly believe that if I could find...anyone...who has gone through this specific event that maybe I could finally help her. If anyone can point me to a thread, a person, a site, anything, anything, anything...please. Trying to find peer help online seems like it might be a better resource than anything else I have found thus far. Also, should I contact her appointed therapist at the clinic she's attending?

I will be here waiting anxiously for any response.

Thanks, strangers.

Sylens

 

[CFC]

Hi Sylens, I'm really sorry to hear about your friend's predicament. I would say we have quite a few people here who've shared similar experiences before. You'll probably find The Dark Side to be the most useful forum to read other experiences and ask any questions. I'm actually going to go ahead and move this thread over there for you in case anyone there has any helpful feedback they can give.

All the best!
CFC

 

[Trabbamab]

Sylens, unfortunately since this is your friend you have a lot less control than if this was happening to you. The best thing you can do is be supportive. I can't imagine waking up to find a S/O dead, OD'd next to me. I firmly believes she needs to speak to someone professionally to better help her cope with this. Unfortunately our culture has really demonized people who get a counselor as being "weak" or "crazy" so it can cause a lot of difficulty with trying to get someone who really needs help to seek it out.

What I once did with one of my friends who I really felt needed help is that I told them I was going to see a therapist and I would love them to come to support me and try it out as well. This immediately blows down the "You need to go to a therapist because you are crazy and I am not" barrier so many people seem to feel in these types of conversations. If you can, be willing to actually go in and talk to someone yourself if your friend will do the same. But this can be an amazing and supportive way to get a friend to take that first major step into treatment.

Best of luck with it!

 

[herbavore]

I can imagine why your friend wants to end her life. I found my son's body hours after an overdose. The tsunami of remorse, guilt, "if only"s and "what if"s pull you far out to sea within that first instant of awareness. The most important thing for your friend is to have people around her that understand the immensity of the grief. You cannot get over something like that--you go through it, you acknowledge how much it hurts and will continue to hurt and eventually you learn how to carry it without staggering under the weight of it. When I first joined Bluelight it was through this situation. At the same time one of the BL moderators had just lost her partner (also to overdose) and we held each other up for a long time. It has been 6 years now. I wish she were still here to talk to your friend. It is different to lose a partner and a child but despite the differences there is a commonality simply in dealing with the finality of death. Everyone talks about death but it is in the abstract. When someone you love dies there is nothing abstract about it. The person you loved is gone, completely and utterly gone, and regardless of your religious beliefs that absence in your life is at first so agonizing that you see no reason to go on. But if your friend's family and friends can understand that she needs to grieve in her own way, she can find her way back to wanting to live. You say she is in a toxic environment with her parents? Is there any chance that one of her friends that knows them (the family) could help by talking to them? Any chance she could stay with someone else?