My best friend dying changed my life...for the better?

This is a very hard blog to write and was a hard truth to even acknowledge...

Initially 11 months ago when I got a phone call that my best friend had drowned in her tub I was devastated, beyond consolation, literally just a sobbing mess, I collapsed into the dirt in the backyard and wailed in a way I didn't know possible. In the months following it didn't get much better. I woke up sobbing. I drank all day every day. I could think of nothing but my dead friend. I lost my job, my home. I couch surfed a bit and just....wanted to die. I wanted to "join her" and not in a religious way. I am an atheist. I just wanted us to be nothingness together. I literally had no desire to go on without her.

As I deal with all my feelings about her I realize our relationship was super intense and very powerful. We were so close that we cuddled, bathed together, shared everything -even a guy once-, and talked to one another every day. We were inseparable for at least a decade. Losing her very much felt like losing a part of myself, and a big part at that. I sat with empty eyes, life playing out before before them in black and white, and thought about how anyone at all could have died but her and I would be happier. A selfish thought but one I couldn't fight at the time.

Well, after many, many months of this and several almost successful suicide attempts my body started fighting back. An underlying disease I had had for years without much notice flared horribly. Interstitial cystitis. It is a bladder condition that can be flared by...stress. And for me, it was doing just that. It basically felt like I had a UTI 24/7 and I had to pee every 5-10 minutes, literally. If I moved I had bladder spasms. I had a big bucket by my bed that I had to pee in and I pretty much lay in bed crying about my pain, which was honestly a bit of a relief in that I was no longer thinking of nothing but my dead friend. I now could only think of my own pain.

I looked into my disease and read all about it and read stories about people who took on super stressful jobs and had the worst flare of their life and recognized that I had to let Beffy go somewhat, or I had to die because I could not live the way I was living. I had to loosen my grip on how closely I held her. It was literally only this disease that made me let go of my friend. I knew I didn't want to be in physical pain 24/7 and I knew if I kept watching a dead girl's youtube videos all day while sobbing uncontrollably I would be in pain.

So, I started to move on...

I decided that if I wasn't going to actually kill myself that I needed to really, really live. I decided that I needed to embrace life because it was short, as I had learned first-hand. I also developed this desire to "live in her honor". I started blowing bubbles constantly as she had loved to do. I started, even more so, embracing my child-like wonder and being a general weirdo. I started living loudly and boldly and I started creating art, constantly.

Writing and creating art is a huge part of how I got through the pain. I have gained many fans as a result of expressing raw, real art. Art that came from a place of deep pain and suffering. Art that was spawned by my best friend's death. I now have a sense of purpose and a reason to live. I literally cannot deny that my life has gotten....better since she died as a result of not her death but my reaction to it. I published my first book and am working on more, I gained fans, I stopped trying to die, I ditched my super abusive family. All of this I did because I lost her. It made me realize I was living my life all wrong and I didn't want to wind up dead in a bath tub having done and pursued nothing. (not saying that she did nothing, she did a TON of things, just that I was in a rut myself)

There's also the fact that her and I were enablers. In drug use, in self harm, in excessive drinking. We tried to get on healthy paths and sometimes we did but we always slipped back to a comfortable place of using unhealthy coping mechanisms. And it always made it worse if we sunk into that place together. We have literally cut ourselves with the same razor, ate bottles of pills side by side. These things were very dangerous and her dying made them cease to exist. I still sometimes cope in unhealthy ways but I no longer have that partner in crime.

It has been very hard admitting all of this and I don't feel like I am glad she died. I still have this giant, gaping hole in my chest that I would do anything to fill. I would be beside myself with joy if I found out this was all some elaborate prank. I would jump up and down frantically for years at the news that my best friend is very much alive. In spite of all that, however, I know that my life is better right now as a result of her death. I want to once again point out it is actually my reaction to her death that improved my life, not her dying. Still, a hard pill to swallow.

I also just want to say I have not forgotten her whatsoever and still think of her every day. I just started thinking of the happy times we had instead of obsessing over the loss.

I could go on for ages about all the lessons I learned and the self-growth I experienced from losing my friend but I will end it here.