A little over a month ago my two best friends tried to kill themselves on the same night. Throughout the month one of those friends has done that several times. Thankfully they're both still alive today.
Ever since that happened I haven't felt like myself at all, I just, feel like I'm carrying too much and like I'm all alone. People know being suicidal is hard and loosing someone to suicide is hard but having someone you really care about try to kill themselves (and describe how they did it) can also be hard on anyone. I can't make a description of the event on this post but I can say that they didn't pull back, they didn't stop and turn back, they tried to go through and were stopped by an external source. For me that's the part that hurts the most. Knowing they wanted to go through with it.
Ever since it happened Ive been having intrusive thoughts/images about it and just feeling constantly stressed/irritable and having nightmares every now and them. Nightmares in either which I watch them hurt themselves or they die by some form and its my fault. I also had per-existing abandonment issues so before this happened I'd constantly wonder how I would feel if my friends died but the one thing that kept me grounded was knowing that that can't happen in any realistic scenario and now its happening.
Going through life I feel so different, like none of the people I see from day to day have gone through something like this so that makes me different, and if I told them what's going on in my head they'd see me as pathetic because I shouldn't feel this way since they're still alive.
I feel so isolated. Like I want someone, not anyone, but a close friend, who I can talk to about this, but then I remember I have three friends in this world, and two of them want to die. The third one I can talk to but wasn't affected the same way and doesn't really relate.
I don't really know what I'm asking through this post, I guess I just wanted to let it out. I guess I also want to know I'm not alone. Anyone else going through this?
I've been on both sides of this, and the important part is to know that it is not your fault if they do kill themselves. I know this is easier said than done since that is a deep deep emotional thing, but it is the truth; you are their friend and you clearly want only good things for them; you caring about them isn't the thing actually hurting them. The depression or whatever mental health issue it is at the root is taking them from you, and you aren't losing them because of something you're doing. They likely don't even want to die, but in their views warped by the mental health problems see it as the only option they have; it is a terrible situation for everyone involved.
I don't know any words to fix the situation, but just know that you aren't alone. I prevented my friend from killing themselves by calling help, which I did knowing it would push them away from me and they wouldn't tell me the next time. And they didn't, and later succeeded. The same friend told me long ago they wouldn't leave me, when I talked about my abandonment issues and how everyone is always eventually leaving me behind. Even then I knew they would leave me too; and they did, the worst and most permanent way...
What's stopped me from killing myself so far is 100% others, because knowing how much it would hurt them hurts me too. When things get bad I still always end up in the same dark place, and it is impossible to say will the void take me when the next time comes around. It is a battle where I have no winning moves, since no matter what I do, I'm just hurting everyone and myself too, and knowing this just makes things worse. I am suffering and it is out of my control, and that is making others suffer too.
You are trying so hard you're hurting yourself, and there's probably nothing more you could do in this situation; you can't fix it since it's out of your control too. Sometimes life's just total shit, and we can't do anything about it.
Im really sorry that happened to you, that's awful. Its also what I'm terrified of, calling help for them and that causing them to not tell me the next time. So far I haven't had to do that but I have had to convince them to call help themselves which worked. Then they started blaming me for being alive (in a good way) though its still overwhelming to hear that. They talk so much about self harm and their suicidal intentions to the point where its traumatic and I honestly dont know how much more I can take before I do something stupid and let them down. The other friend is just distant and its terrifying when they don't answer any messages. You're right though, there's nothing I can do about it except tell them how much they mean to me and listen to them when they need to talk.