This week I learned that my best friend from High school took their own life. We hadn’t seen each other in many years and were in sporadic contact (like most people I have known throughout my life of constant moving and upheaval). I feel a deep love for my friend and a great sadness that they died too soon and in so much pain. My friend and I bonded sophomore year in high school and were part of a band of misfit kids who came from broken families and abuse. We held each other together. We understood each other in ways ‘normal people’ couldn’t. We were neurodivergent, queer punks navigating the beginning of the end of the US empire and AIDS.
My friend and I share a horrible mental phenomenon known as C-PTSD. The C stands for complex, meaning that we were sexually assaulted in childhood and had multiple other abuses inflicted upon us by adults in our lives who were suppose to care before we were 18 years old. We were friends partly because we understood each other’s mood swings and anger came from the same place and wasn’t about our friendship. We were friends partly because we could deal with crazy erratic behavior that scared others, and would take risks others would not.
C-PTSD has profound effects on the psyche and literally changes your brain function (look it up they did MRI scans). It leaves us survivors vulnerable to a host of medical issues such as substance abuse, obesity, anorexia, heart disease, asthma, a propensity for cancer, and diabetes. Those with C-PTSD have shorter live spans typically dying by our 50s. It leave us survivors vulnerable to extreme anxiety and depression. My suicide attempt was in 8th grade, I am not sure when my friend had their first attempt but I know there were many throughout the years for my friend. In sum C-PTSD is a bitch, it hurts physically and emotionally.
There is hope, there are ways to cope and retrain your brain to process better, but it is a hell of a lot of work and is exhausting. Those of us with C-PTSD know there is no cure, it will always be something that must be managed and worked around this is also exhausting. I feel a lot of people minimize C-PTSD if they even believe it is a thing and that makes it difficult to disclose and talk about our issues, compounded with the immense self-shame we feel because of C-PTSD. I don’t blame my friend, though there is a tinge of anger that they chose to exit the planet. I understand all too well the emotions and the frustrations and the isolation and the pain.
So here I sit in the middle of a global pandemic that has killed millions of people over the last 12 months, thinking about death has become the norm. I sit here with sadness but also with – I know it’s weird for me – hope. As we get older, more people we know die. Some people experience the loss of parents at young ages (I was 26 when my father died). Some people experience the death of friends and family early. The pandemic really brought into focus the fact that many people have never dealt with significant losses before. Loss sucks, it burns, it aches, it sucks out your breath. Knowing that someone you loved is never ever going to have a conversation with you again is heartbreaking. Loss also is good.
I don’t mean it’s good that all these people have died or that my friend killed themselves. I mean that it is good in that it generates empathy between humans. I mean, it is good in that it is when we lose people really show up. I walked in the sun the day I learned of my friend’s death with my dog, smiled, and was thankful for still being alive to feel the warm sun. I was thankful for my friends who have sustained me in my adult life even when they were not aware there were. I was thankful for the chance this even and the pandemic have given me to think about what actually matters in life, and to be more conscious of telling people how much they help me, and I love them.
So thank you, my friend. I will always love you. I am thankful you are at peace.
melungeon mullins 