Combatting a friend's suicide

[Callie189]

So I have a friend who committed suicide when she was in her Sophomore year of high school. It's been a bit of time since this happened, about a year or two, and I still think about her. She was smart, funny, athletic, pretty, and had an awesome group of friends. From what I heard from her sister, they had an argument one night and the girl made a spur of the moment decision to commit suicide. I wasn't particularly close to her, but I still feel sad about it from time to time

She was so young and had so many things in life going for her. It's crazy to me that it's all over, just like that.

How do I move on from my feelings of missing her? I still have thoughts of not wanting to go to events, or feeling bad about going to them because she wanted to go and now will never be able to.

Thanks

[melancholy123]

Counseling may be of help to you. You need to learn you cant put your life on hold because of this person's suicide.

[nutbrownhare]

One of the tragedies of suicide is that all the comforting clichés that we tell ourselves ("They wouldn't want us to be upset"; "They would want us to carry on as usual") just don't apply. It's a very aggressive act, albeit one which is carried out against the self rather than another person, and it makes the emotional reactions rather more complicated than if, say, someone had been killed in an accident. Within my experience, it's a lot more difficult to make sense of it, and there's always the feeling of guilt - you hint at this when you say you feel bad about going to events.

I agree with melancholy when she suggests you attend counselling, as a safe place to explore your emotions, let them go and carry on with your life.