AldenSchooner

I don't have enough post counts to post links, so apologies that if you want to see my previous posts, I guess you have to search by username?

Summary: My alcoholic friend/ex-boyfriend/former love of my life died in April, alone, in a crappy motel, of a heart attack. He had access to Oxy and Valium, and after our very last telephone conversation, in which I told him he might as well kill himself, he died and I blamed myself. We subsequently exchanged some nasty texts after he hung up on me, in which I repeated "you might as well kill yourself". We last talked on a Monday, we texted very briefly on Wednesday, I tried to call him on Friday, and on Saturday, the motel owner checked on him and found him dead. I spoke to the coroner and he said that the cause of death was a heart attack. Unfortunately, because his family got ahold of his phone, they saw my texts. One family member outright said that he died because of me (suicide), and I'm sure that the rest of the family believes it, too. There was never an obituary, and I assumed that there was no funeral. The whole situation was so completely messed up it's incredible. I did things I'm not proud of . I have since gotten a lot of therapy, and I went back on anti-depressants because I do have a history of depression.

My previous posts are about my personal feelings of guilt, and then my feelings evolved into a desire for vengeance on his family, who I believed had abandoned him.

I'm back to report that since I first discovered this site, and read everyone's responses, that I took them to heart and am doing a lot better. For the past 3-4 months, I've only had a handful of occasions when I suffered very, very slight setbacks. That is, until this past weekend.

December 8th would have been his 61st birthday. I was prepared for a bit of emotion, but I had just returned from overseas and honestly, I forgot all about it (mostly). Then on Saturday, December 18th (my deceased father's birthday, which is a weird coincidence but wasn't affecting me), I was on TikTok. Usually my feed is incredibly carefully curated, but somehow a video popped up that seemed compelling, so I watched it. The creator was kind of a spoken-word poet, and he was describing his life living and working at a crappy motel that took in people no one else wanted. There was a montage of scenes, one of which was the door of a room in which a kid had died. The TikTok creator said that the kid had never liked to have the door closed, so he opened it whenever he could. Cue the waterworks.

Then I went to the comment section. An unbelievable number of people had loved ones who had died alone in motel rooms. They had room numbers. More waterworks, and emotions. I decided I wanted to know what room Steve died in, so I called the motel. The owner remembered me, of course, and Steve. But he wouldn't give me the room number. He did say that I could come by when I was in the area and show it to me. By this time I was sobbing, and said something about not knowing what happened to him. The owner said he was almost certain that there was, indeed, a funeral and that he was buried. Which means there's a headstone somewhere - I just don't know exactly where. I can find out, but it would require me calling a couple of funeral homes, and I'm not ready to go there emotionally because I've come so far.

THEN, I got it in my head that I would write to the one family member who I believe would read my letter, and apologize for...being in his life at all? Acting out against the family? Anything and everything. Let me be clear: I did not do this, and I know I shouldn't do this. I can't get in to see my therapist for at least a week. Please, the collective mind of this forum, I need some tough love. Tell me why my desire to do this is misguided, and why it's harmful to me. Seeing it in other people's words is incredibly affirming. Thank you.

Free2bme888

It could be a legal nightmare. Especially if family is blaming you.

His behavior and actions were his, and yours yours.

Pray for inner peace to yourself. Take a walk, look at the miracle we are blessed with.

Name 5 things you are grateful for. Right now.

Hugs

SparkleKitty

Please leave his family alone. Instead, ask yourself for forgiveness, and the grace to let go.

AldenSchooner

I hadn't even thought of that.

They are a hateful, toxic clan, and since I was the one who essentially "found him" dead and talked to the coroner, albeit long distance, I know that I didn't "command" him to kill himself and he didn't "comply" with the command. The family member I talked to didn't know what she was talking about and when I called her out, she had nothing. I'm not worried about legal action, but if they could find a way...

I am 100% NC with anyone. I should keep it that way, now for an additional reason.

Thanks very much for your response. And will follow your advice, because it's good. Thanks for the hug.

AldenSchooner

This comment affected me in a way I didn't expect. 100% honesty here - I don't and will never have sympathy for his family. I need to leave them alone because any attempted contact with them is a) futile, and b) not good for me. I'm still trying to figure out what my agenda is. The idea popped into my head, and I don't want it to happen again.

Working hard to forgive myself for not having the sense to stay away from him in the first place because he caused me nothing but heartache. I am slowly making progress in letting it go, but I don't know if you can ever completely let go?

I apologize if I sound like I don't think your advice is sound as hell. It is. But I perceived a tone of "his poor family, leave them alone". I don't think of them very often, and eventually they'll be put away in a box in my mind, never to be reopened. Because I can never forgive them. However, I am trying mightily to forget them.

sage1969

My circumstances were very different from yours but I will say that my deceased AH, after years of mental illness and multiple accompanying addictions, completed suicide. His family did and still does blame me for his death. I am completely NC with them, they've also cut off contact with my children. I had gotten preliminary information from the ME, who tried very hard to be sensitive as well as cut off the most disturbing of details, such as hotel room numbers, which at the time I didn't understand, but now I understand would not have served to make any additional sense of the situation for me.

Your situation is different in that it was a medical condition, but similar in that his perpetuation of addiction was a factor; regardless, what has happened is in the past, and the choices he made were his choices and not yours, none of it can be changed, and knowing more details will still not change anything. I'd say for your peace of mind and healing, to remain NC and not write that letter, or if you do, write it for therapy and then shred it but not send it.

I'd also say that the amount of hatred and unkindness that was directed at me from the estranged family was so difficult for me to understand or reconcile; contact with his family might be extremely wounding and triggering for you, and any information you might gain from this, I'm not certain it would be worth it, for your healing or for theirs.

AldenSchooner

I remember your response to my first post, and I was comforted by the fact that you could relate so well and that you were willing to share your experience.

While I'm 100% certain that I didn't "command" that he take his life (the tone/context of our last conversation was not "Go kill yourself", but rather, "you know you shouldn't be drinking at all for X,Y, and Z reasons, yet not only are you, but you've escalated your drinking. If you're so intent on killing yourself..." Plus, the only reason the whole horrible subject came up was because every time he perceived that I didn't "love" him any more, he WOULD do something self-destructive. A month earlier he drove straight into a tree at 40mph with a BAC so high he wouldn't even tell me. All because of a perceived slight. It was a pattern with him. Prior to that, his daughter couldn't reach him and called for a wellness check on him. They found him drunk, sick, and malnourished in his "cottage". Apparently he told them a wild story about something I'd done to him that NEVER HAPPENED. I don't know if it was a fever dream, his meds, or what. But that didn't look good, either.

Your advice is spot on. I actually do this a lot in other contexts. I just wish I could get this out of my head for good, because writing that letter is just letting them live there, rent free.

Thank you so much and I hope you're doing well.

trailmix

I think you have to have respect for his choice. As tragic as his story is, he made his own choices as a grown adult man. If he chose to, or in his muddled mind he came to conclusions, about anything you said or did or he decided happened, that's nothing to do with you, personally.

You didn't Cause it, can't Control it and couldn't Cure it - never could. Now you just need to believe that.

I wouldn't contact the family, there is nothing for you there (or for him).

AlwaysGrowing

RIPSteve

Maybe write the letter you want to send. Really pour your heart into it. Take it outside, pray and set it on fire. Just the writing of it will help. Praying will hand over the guilt and burning can help with knowing it wasn't your fault. It TOTALLY sucks being on your end when the other person isn't around. His path was set with you being around or not. What you said via text was coming from a place of wanting him to sober up and frustration all of us experience. Don't feel bad about watershed moments. Let them come and embrace them.

AG

AldenSchooner

I just finished a REALLY long thread written by someone who is in sort of the same headspace that I was in for 4 months. Until I came here. At first, I felt that some people were being too hard on him, blah, blah, blah...Now? I recognize myself in another person and I am grateful for the bluntness. I kind of miss him, but then I think - what am I missing? What? Only a tiny, tiny, tiny slice of time 40 years ago when he was a healthy, intelligent young man. The past 4+ years? I feel like I've woken up from a bad nightmare. I'm usually pretty good - a couple of weeks ago, I was finally able to listen to playlists on my phone that had some of his favorite songs on them.

And then...a setback. A totally irrational setback. Triggered by TikTok. Honestly!

I'm not sure if "respect" is the right word for his decision, because there's a good chance that it was unintentional, if, indeed, he decided to take that route. Or, it could have been something else completely - if he'd had his pacemaker checked regularly, including the part that notifies 911, maybe he would have lived. That said, it was his decision to neglect his cardiac condition, so there's that. Whatever. Mostly I think he was a narcissist, and he got me good.

But yes, yes, yes, I need to not send a letter. I've been reading this forum for a couple of hours, and I'm not even wanting to spend my time writing it. That said, writing it and burning it is the most "me" course of action should I have another hiccup. Thank you so much.

AldenSchooner

I mixed up yours and the post above in another response (about the burning of the letter), but yes, that's a very "me" way to handle it when I'm being rational.

Thank you so much for those magical words: "What you said via text was coming from a place of wanting him to sober up and frustration all of us experience." Yes, yes, yes. That was exactly it. And now, with the benefit of time, I can confidently say that if his family couldn't see that, and chose to believe something preposterous, they are exactly who I thought they were.

Also agree about watershed moments. That moment brought me back here, which is exactly what I need.

velma929

Trying to forgive or not forgive his family is entirely up to you, of course. I'd point out that not forgiving them isn't hurting them, at all, but maintaining the grudge is siphoning energy away from YOUR life.

You assume his family is awful, (they may be). He may not have told you the truth about them. They, too, may have been at their wits' end trying to think of a way to help him, or they may have just given up. You believe they abandoned him. In fact, they had as much control over him as you did: zero.

Your first step to finding a grave is the logically labeled, "Find a Grave." You know his name, birth and death years. I have ordinary people in my family, and my family members are listed. His family may or may not have had a funeral. They may have had him cremated and not buried him yet; I dithered about for three years before having my husband interred. Or if he had some particular fondness for a place, his ashes may be scattered and there's no grave to find. Anyway, it's worth a shot.

AldenSchooner

Just to clarify - given enough time, I am very good at compartmentalizing, and it works pretty well for me. I will never forgive his family, but I can forget about them. Kind of like...they're dead to me?

Regarding his awful family: I knew them. We grew up in the same area. They were not at their wits' end trying to help him. Two of his three siblings were alcoholics as well. He was definitely problematic, but I'll never know why his problems were considered worse than his siblings' problems. Here's something that happened that was totally unrelated to him: His nephew, who is a famous singer but completely out of his mind, went to Florida to pick up his mother (Steve's sister) and drive her to California where he lives. The whole way, he was livestreaming the trip on Instagram. That was all fun and games until the nephew suddenly decided that he was fed up with his mom and kicked her out of the car just inside the Arizona border. She convinced him to at least drive her to Phoenix, where Steve lived, and he just dropped her off there. She had no money, a bunch of puppies...it was messed up. This isn't hearsay - I watched it happen. Steve was in no position to help her. Her other brother, who I went to high school with, wouldn't help her. So all three of them were living in the same house and fighting constantly. It was insane.

That's just one story of many.

I tried Find a Grave, but nothing. He could only be buried in one of two cemeteries, but I'm just not up for moving backwards right now. I'm pretty sure he was, indeed, buried. I have a high degree of certainty that the reason I couldn't find anything out was because a) obituaries cost money, and I can't see any of them paying for it, and/or b) they figured I would try to crash the funeral, which I wouldn't have, for obvious reasons. The family is very big on who is and who isn't allowed at funerals to begin with, a quirk that pre-dates me by years. They even had a **** list for his father's funeral. I know a lot of people come on here saying they know this or that, but this clan is bananas. Truly. I'm not going to disclose names, but if I did, you could see their antics captured all over the internet.

I do appreciate your response. You're not wrong about holding a grudge, and it needed to be said.

Eddiebuckle

The objective truth is that Steve was an alcoholic and drug user who had serious mental health issues. After decades of addiction, he died of a heart attack.

Your subjective experience is that Steve, although deeply flawed, was worthy of love. Because you spoke to him soon before his death, and that he died alone, you feel that somehow you could have said or done something differently that would have changed the outcome. Because of his family's "norms" you had no chance to truly grieve and get some degree of closure.

I got sober twelve years ago today, and I am now 55. My life was probably not a whole lot different than Steve's when he was in his early forties. I seriously doubt that I would have lived to see 61 if I hadn't gotten sober when I did. Nothing anyone said to me changed my actions when I was in active addiction - it took me to a place not unlike Steves life: I lived alone, was unpredictable and selfish, and although I desperately wanted to have a life filled with love I was incapable of long term relationships. Alcoholism was my everything until I was willing to remove it from my life entirely. Addiction by its nature defies statistics, but in my experience very few people get and stay sober for the rest of their days. Steve's story is tragic, but sadly not all that uncommon. Nothing you could have done would have changed his trajectory, addiction or recovery was his alone to choose.

I think it's pretty universal the way people feel when they first hold an infant: awe. We are all God's children, and I think we sense that when we hold a child. That is what we grieve when we lose someone dear to us - it doesn't matter so much what they did, they still carried a spark of the divine. When that spark fades, the world loses a little bit of its light. Remember Steve's spark, his soul, and wish him well on his journey. Rather than dwell on what was and might have been, look forward and use what you have learned to live your life in a way that honors your spark. I think that's the best way to honor those we lost.

Bekindalways

Hey RIP, glad you are posting here and also it sounds like you have chosen to stay away from his family which is probably beyond wise.

I hope you can work your own recovery with a renewed dedication because of Steve's death. It is so so sad and another reminder to all of us that we can only control our own actions.

Peace and healing to you.

AldenSchooner

That’s exactly it. It’s really hard to see that spark die - literally. It’s also been really hard to grieve alone. I’ve accepted that he’s gone, and in some ways, it’s a relief. My spark is still there. It’s just had a bit of a rough time. I’ve learned a lot from y’all.

Thanks so much, and I’m glad you overcame it. I’m sure there are a lot of people in your life who are incredibly grateful.

AldenSchooner

Thank you. I’ll probably have another post soon because I’ve lost someone else who was dear to me, and connected to Steve from years back. Super sad because he was our math teacher, and he just passed away from cancer. I missed an opportunity to let him know while he was alive that he made a huge impact on Steve. Just a few more of these caring people and I think things might have gone better for him. But I’ll be sending his daughter the story. It’s a nice one.

Also a reminder to tell people how much they mean to you while you can.