Weird guilt...

[DZoolander]

So, my 30th reunion is coming up this year and on FB there's a group for my classmates to discuss stuff. One of the recent posts asked people who in our class had passed, and in what year. I found out that an old good friend of mine from Jr High passed about 5 years ago.

...and it's causing a sense of guilt in me.

He was one of my better friends throughout Jr. High. He'd stay the weekend at my house, or I'd stay the weekend at his house. Got along with his mom really well, he got along with my family really well.

And the guy was brilliant. At 14 years old - he was given the opportunity to skip straight to college. Instead of 9th grade, he started at one of the branches of the University of California full time. Graduated with his BA by 17, and was the youngest person to ever pass the California State Bar at age 20.

I lost touch with him when we were about 18-19. Mostly - it was because he wasn't "cool" enough. I had an opportunity to start hanging out with "cooler" kids - and there were some things that bugged me about him. He was too close to his mom in my opinion (like if we went to see a movie he would call her before the movie to assure her we were alright), he would call her directly after the movie to assure her we were all right, etc. It was just incessant in my eyes - and since I was trying to assert my independence, that sorta flew in the face of everything I valued at the moment.

So, I stopped talking to him, and just went about my own business.

Because he was so much younger than everyone else in school, he really didn't have a lot of compatriots there/friends. In retrospect I think I was probably one of the few friends that he had.

I'm talking to a friend of mine right now about the details of it - and it's really kinda bringing back memories of that period. Apparently at around 19-20 (I guess shortly after I decided to move on) he started showing signs of schizophrenia. He became isolated. As time progressed, it got worse and worse. He started taking drugs supposedly, and eventually hard drugs. Started cutting himself, eventually lost his house, etc...and by 42 he died.

Apparently his mom died a couple of months later. I can totally see that - given how close they were.

Hearing about the mom dying so close to him - just like you hear about spouses dying within short shrift of each other - kinda brings me back to the things I was thinking about him back then. Then hearing about how isolated he apparently was in context of how I was probably one of his only friends - and my deciding to stop hanging out with him because he wasn't "cool" enough - is bringing me a weird sense of guilt that I don't normally feel.

Just sad all around.

 

[Dave G.]

We all have a few things in our past we aren't too proud of. We are forgiven in the blood of Christ, He isn't going to hold us accountable, who came to Him and repented . But we hold ourselves accountable endlessly and really needlessly. Satan loves to throw that weakness in our faces. We can walk free by the Grace of God if we will just let ourselves, He has given us that right once born again.

 

[Mountainmanbob]

Your feelings and thoughts are understood.

Reminds us to thank God for life, loved ones and friends each and every day.

As we get older it gets harder and harder to keep up with all of the ones leaving earth. I ask myself often are they still around or did they already die?

I will send them a text asking them to lunch and see if they show up.

M-Bob

 

[Odetta]

Could you have stayed in touch? Well, yeah. But there was so much in his life that was problematic that you had no control over. Are you thinking that maybe if you'd stayed in touch, he wouldn't be dead right now? That you could have saved him? That's a lot of pressure to put on yourself - especially your teenaged self. I'm not really sure he would have made significantly different decisions if you'd been present, given his challenges.

 

[DZoolander]

Could you have stayed in touch? Well, yeah. But there was so much in his life that was problematic that you had no control over. Are you thinking that maybe if you'd stayed in touch, he wouldn't be dead right now? That you could have saved him? That's a lot of pressure to put on yourself - especially your teenaged self. I'm not really sure he would have made significantly different decisions if you'd been present, given his challenges.

Yeah - I know what you're saying and I agree.

It's just an unusual thing for me to think about - because it causes me to revisit a lot of things I haven't thought about in a while.

Like, of all my friends, he's the one that my folks liked the most. As far as my parents were concerned, I was the rebellious kid who never lived up to his potential. So I've got this buddy who's basically Doogie Howser but for law...lol I can't begin to count the number of times they gave me speeches along the lines of "Your mind is just as good as his - how come...?" - or when he would incessantly call his mom - the comparison would be drawn to how I was trying to distance myself from them/assert independence.

I would argue to them that life had a progression - and that there were things that people needed to go through in order to be fulfilled and stable. That his mom really did him no favors by allowing him to skip directly to university at 14 - because the lack of having true peers would leave him emotionally stunted in the long run. That the isolation he would experience would become a real problem for him to overcome.

That was a real bone of contention between my folks and me during my teenage years.

And in a lot of ways finding out the circumstances of his death reminds me of those arguments. In a lot of ways - I feel vindicated about my opinion. But isn't that a really crappy thing to be right about? Isn't it horrible that I take some sort of weird consolation in the fact that my opinion/position prevailed?

And then yeah - to some degree (although not a major one) - I do feel a bit of guilt that I cut ties with him.

The whole circumstance is just bizarre for me to think through on a variety of levels given all of the factors involved. It's also strange that the discussions I had with my folks about these things nearly 30 years ago still have an impact upon how I think right now.

 

[EmmaCat]

I truly believe we often regret choices. I have regrets. I often look back and think, "I could have done better here" or "I should have done this there" or "Why didn't I think of (whatever) then?"

Sometimes at the time when things happen, it's in the here and now, which we deal with in the here and now. Sometimes things happen so fast we do not have the time to think, but we must react.

We must understand that we are not infallible, and when things such as this happen and we perhaps think back upon them, we must ask Jesus for forgiveness, and ask Him for better clarity in the future.

We cannot take back what was said or done in the past. However, we can go on stronger as we pray harder and try our best to always do best.

I do hope and pray we all find peace and are strengthened by Jesus to continue on.

My Mom always says, "Emmy, life is not a dress rehearsal. Life is a one and only chance and we must rely on Jesus to get us through it."

All good things
Emmy

 

[Ana the Ist]

So, my 30th reunion is coming up this year and on FB there's a group for my classmates to discuss stuff. One of the recent posts asked people who in our class had passed, and in what year. I found out that an old good friend of mine from Jr High passed about 5 years ago.

...and it's causing a sense of guilt in me.

He was one of my better friends throughout Jr. High. He'd stay the weekend at my house, or I'd stay the weekend at his house. Got along with his mom really well, he got along with my family really well.

And the guy was brilliant. At 14 years old - he was given the opportunity to skip straight to college. Instead of 9th grade, he started at one of the branches of the University of California full time. Graduated with his BA by 17, and was the youngest person to ever pass the California State Bar at age 20.

I lost touch with him when we were about 18-19. Mostly - it was because he wasn't "cool" enough. I had an opportunity to start hanging out with "cooler" kids - and there were some things that bugged me about him. He was too close to his mom in my opinion (like if we went to see a movie he would call her before the movie to assure her we were alright), he would call her directly after the movie to assure her we were all right, etc. It was just incessant in my eyes - and since I was trying to assert my independence, that sorta flew in the face of everything I valued at the moment.

So, I stopped talking to him, and just went about my own business.

Because he was so much younger than everyone else in school, he really didn't have a lot of compatriots there/friends. In retrospect I think I was probably one of the few friends that he had.

I'm talking to a friend of mine right now about the details of it - and it's really kinda bringing back memories of that period. Apparently at around 19-20 (I guess shortly after I decided to move on) he started showing signs of schizophrenia. He became isolated. As time progressed, it got worse and worse. He started taking drugs supposedly, and eventually hard drugs. Started cutting himself, eventually lost his house, etc...and by 42 he died.

Apparently his mom died a couple of months later. I can totally see that - given how close they were.

Hearing about the mom dying so close to him - just like you hear about spouses dying within short shrift of each other - kinda brings me back to the things I was thinking about him back then. Then hearing about how isolated he apparently was in context of how I was probably one of his only friends - and my deciding to stop hanging out with him because he wasn't "cool" enough - is bringing me a weird sense of guilt that I don't normally feel.

Just sad all around.

That kind of social isolation is typical in cases of schizophrenia...so is the drug use, as an attempt of self medicating.

There's nothing you really could've done. Be happy you get to remember him as he was...not as what his condition changed him to.

 

[JRichard68]

Cutting ties like that can be hard, especially if you'd lost contact with him, and found out about what happened years later. I'd had a close friend in middle/high school and college who I'd hung out with regularly. he'd started out being one of the kids who picked on me a bit but he (his words) "had pity on me"

We'd gone through a number of things together, did the punk rock thing, hung out, got drunk together, all that. At one point he'd gotten his s.o. pregnant and asked me to be the godparent. I was really taken aback and moved by that. Soon after, he'd cut off contact with me. I saw him a few years later, and he'd gotten into some hard drugs, and was the "collector" for drug debts. He'd contacted me about six months after that, had moved, and gotten engaged. He wanted me at the wedding and was going to let me know when/where. I never heard.

Five years later (no contact) I'd written him of as dead, and a letter appeared from him at my parent's address. I went to see him a few times, and it was pretty clear that years of drug use had done a number on his mind. At times he'd be coherent, other times not so much. He was full-on Wiccan, married, and had three kids. So we talked off and on, and met up on occasion.

The last time we talked, there was a band coming to town (Motorhead! ) and I was curious if he wanted to go and "re-live" the old days one more time. He then revealed some things to me about himself, and made certain advances toward me over the phone. I declined, and he persisted. I declined again, and hung up. That was the last contact I'd had with him, and I really don't intend to contact him again. It was a hard decision, but necessary, given our conversation. I'd tried to explain why I responded the way I did, but to continue pursuing afterward just devalued any friendship we might have had.

I've spoken to friends that we had in common since then, but his name never came up when talking with them. This particular person, I think, has burned a number of bridges, and it's sad.

 

[DZoolander]

Your friend in a lot of ways is similar to another guy I knew back in HS.

I had a pretty good buddy back in HS that ended up getting his S.O. pregnant just before graduation. Like you, he asked me to be the GodParent. I didn't like the girl - and thought he was screwing up his life - so I said "no" because "I wasn't going to be complicit in this bad plan."

Well, needless to say that didn't go over very well and we didn't talk for years. During that time, though, I'd hear from various friends about how he was badmouthing me for being "stuck up, thinking I was perfect", etc.

Well, fast forward about a decade. I'm sitting around late one night doing some work with Judge Judy on in the background. I turn to watch for a little bit and I keep thinking "I know that girl getting sued. Where do I know her from?"

Then it dawned on me. It was my buddy's ex-gf (the one he knocked up). Her trashy new bf was suing her for burning all his clothes and belongings...lol

Later I come across the guy on FB - and he's apparently a drug dealer nowadays. Got arrested a couple of years back for selling heroin. When the cops raided his house - they found tons of drug paraphernalia within arm's reach of his 9 year old son with his new g/f (which is another story going back to HS...but no time for that here). So the kid was taken into protective custody for a while, apparently was living with an Aunt for a while, etc. Dunno what's happened in the past year or two.

It is a shame when people go down that path.