My Best Friend Committed Suicide
Her Suffering is Over. Ours has just begun.
The US has one of the highest rates of suicide among wealthy nations with about 123 people killing themselves each day. It’s a national health crisis. How could we not have saved her?
I want to scream at her to take it back. I want to run to her house as if that will put me back with her. I want a rewind. I want her not to have murdered herself. Maybe another chance to talk to her would make it better, lessen her pain, convince her that outside of her mind life wasn’t so bad. But as if the twisted thinking of mental illness wasn’t bad enough she had physical ailments too. She spent years going to doctors trying to find out why her body hurt, why she was so exhausted, but couldn’t sleep. Fibromyalgia. Chronic Fatigue. They didn’t know but they landed on these diagnoses when all other tests and treatments failed. It was better than the doctors telling her it was all in her head or that she was a hypochondriac. Yes, they did this.
She went to every medical center in a 100-mile radius, saw holistic practitioners, acupuncturists, reiki masters, biofeedback, naturopathy — everything she or someone else thought might work. Some treatments gave some temporary relief. However, as time went on she became sicker and had fewer “good days”. She was put on many different medications, initially for…
