How do I explain?

[Girly]

Not even a month ago I was on the phone with a friend of mine (I'll refer to him as J) designating a time for me to drive him home; J had been drinking and knew he was incapable of driving. A few minutes after we hung up, he called me back to tell me a friend of his showed up saying he was sober and offered him a ride home. When I insisted on coming anyway, J convinced me to let his other friend take him seeing how he was already there and I was still home in bed. I hesitated quite a bit, but he assured me that he'd call when he got home. (From where he was to where he lives would take about 15-20 min. driving). About 10 min. later he called me so I answered saying "I know you're not home yet..." laughing thinking he was going to talk to me on his way home just to be silly. I said that only to hear someone elses voice, an unfamiliar voice.... when I asked who it was all I got was, "you don't know me, I just called the number last used on this phone. I just witnessed an accident....I'm on so and so street." I asked the unfamiliar voice to wait there....I don't live too far away. When I got there, the car was wrapped around a pole. The person driving J home was in the right hand lane and a semi was in the middle lane. The semi turned to the RIGHT cutting them off. They slammed into the tail end of the semi, spun out and wrapped around a pole. J was dead at the scene...the friend driving, was drunk. Here is my question: how do I explain it was my fault for not picking him up? I know that wouldn't have happened if I had told him I'd be there anyway and just go get him. I was at his funeral a week or so ago and broke down of guilt.... All I get from everyone is, "you couldn't have possibly known that guy wasn't sober....don't beat yourself over it" That's not what I want....because regardless of how many times people say that to me, I'll always know that my best friends death is at least partly my fault.... and I'm not going to blame someone else for my faults.

[imdead18]

i cant say this enough it totallt is not your fault at all ... you couldnt have known ... he told you he wasnt drunk ... anyone else would have done the same thing ... please dont make yourself feel guilty about this ... its not healthy ... maybe if you really sit down and talk with a close friend about it and get it all out youll feel better and they can talk to you ... but it really isnt your fault!! ... hope i helped!!

[arwen]

Hey girl,

 

I am so sorry that you are going through this. I know you feel guilty, even if common sense makes people tell you that it really wasn't your fault. The reason you feel guilty is because you feel he wouldn't be dead if you picked him up. You wanted to pick him up, but he said you really didn't need to do so. And sadly this is where the story ends. It's not your fault. I know it feels the opposite right now, you cared for him, he was your friend.

 

There is a difference between feeling guilty and being responsible. The feeling of guilt can arise even for the smallest reasons in our hearts. It is there because when we care for another person, we want to prevent them from getting hurt. until more time has passed for you to process what happened to your friend, you will feel this way, and no one will really make this feeling go away.

 

Maybe it helps to seek some counselling for this. I don't know how old you are or if you are still in school or uni, it might be an idea to talk about this with someone whose job is to help people deal with these kind of situations. What happened to you was terrible, especially because you feel like you could have prevented it. Fact is, he made you NOT come to pick him up. It's not your responsibility. It feels different, but the only responsibility for you is to try and give this a place in your life where you can move past this some day.

 

I hope I helped. I really don't know what else to tell you, I am so sorry for you.

 

Ilse.

[Abacab]

Hello girly,

 

I had a girlfriend with whom things didn't work out. After awhile, she started dating this guy who became another person behind the steering wheel. I told him many times to try to calm his driving habits down to no avail.

 

A week after they got married, they were both killed in an accident. Guess who was driving?

 

For some time, I felt a little guilty just like you... But I got over it with time... Now back to your post: ultimately, it's not your fault since you could not persuade your friend to stay where he was. He made a decision, not you, which turned out no to be the right one.

 

Hope the New Year will bring you happiness.

[atigdng]

There are a couple of options for how you can feel in this situation.

 

a: Blame yourself: That is the first natural conclussion because if you had done what you were saying t wouldn't happen.

 

b: blame the dude who was drunk who actually crashed: Since you are a real friend of course you wouldn't do that.

 

c: Don't blane anyone: There is a reason for everything, and it is all meant for good. This happened for reasons that you don't know. But you can try and learn from this, it would be horrible if nobody took thought of how why, then no one would ever learn that way. You have to figure out what your supposed to learn, this didn't happen on accident. Don't get me wrong I am not saying that it is good. I am saying that the biggest lessons we learn in life are those taught from the negative experience. Sure you can learn well from good examples and events, but more likely, the hurtful things will strike sloser to home. I am sorry for your lose. And I hope that you won't have a life long guilt, for your friend wouldn't want that I think.

"Life is just two dates, with a dash in between. What are you going to do with yours?"

 

Sorry for typing so much, I hope I helped. God bless!

[Meow18]

I agree with the others. It is not your fault.

 

You offered to still come pick him up, but he said it wasn't neccesary. You were a good friend to offer to still come pick him up. You had no way of knowing they would get in an accident. There was nothing you could do. He made the choice on his own, you didn't have much to do with what he wanted at that time.

 

Its normal to feel guilt. Its normal to be hurting. You have to realize though, that you didn't do anything wrong. You only offered to pick him up and he said not to. You had no control over what was to happen after that.

 

I'm so sorry about what happened. I couldn't even imagine what you are going through. If you need anything, we are all willing to listen and give you advice or something. Just don't blame yourself, you couldn't control what happened.

[Girly]

I do appreciate all the replys...and thank you so much for the support. I am doing better under the circumstances. I went to his site the other day and "yelled" at him, if you can call it that...It helped quite a bit. Even though I know there was no possibility of a response, it made me feel better being able to express what it was like to see him laying there in the street. It was the first time I actually acknowledged that he was really gone-I believe I was in a state of shock and denile. The little things are the hardest....like, the other day I was scrolling through my phone list on my cell, and I came accross his name knowing if I called that number, he wouldn't be there to answer the other end; his screen name popped up the other day on my aim....my heart just dropped-his sister was going on line using his computer and he had it set up to log him on automatically. Things like that are just little reminders that make it so impossible to put memories of him behind me...well, like I said before, thank you so much for the support.