OMFG ANOTHER OF MY FRIENDS DIED

Losing a friend is never going to be easy. Keeping your own sense of calm and maintaining your friend’s memory are important elements of the grieving process. Accept that this is going to be a very hard time in your life but be reassured by the reality that you will get through this and that the best way to honour your friend is to retain his or her memory always alive in your heart.

Think of the good times. Recall fond memories of things you’ve shared together and remember those. Do not play over the tragedy that took his or her life.

Write poetry, listen to music you like, spend some time alone to reflect. Doing things that remind you of your friend will help you attach positive feelings to thoughts of your friend, even if you cry the entire time you’re doing it at first.

Accept help that others might give you. Lean on family and friends.

Write a eulogy for your friend and read it at the funeral. Visit the grave. Lean on faith. If you believe in God, then pray for your friend, and for yourself and his or her other friends and family.

Allow yourself to feel sad. Don’t let anyone tell you how long you should feel sad, or how sad you should feel. The loss of a friend affects different people in different ways, but it is painful no matter what. Do remember that it is pain that must simply be endured, like a broken arm – there are things you can do to alleviate it for a little while, but it will eventually hurt again until it fully heals. Believe it or not, as painful as this loss is, it will fully heal in time.

Talk to your friend. This might sound weird, but it’ll help. Tell your friend how you feel, that you miss him or her; talk over things that are happening in your life, and how different things are since your friend can’t be with you. Tell your friend that you take him or her with you wherever you go, that he or she is always in your heart. Go for grief counseling or pick up some books on grief and how to handle the pain you feel.

Get enough sleep – or at least rest. Often, soon after the death of a loved one, we are plagued by bad dreams, or sad ones, and sleep seems scary and impossible. Lie down in a darkened room, and if you find it hard to sleep, at least put on some soothing music, or let the TV play softly in the background. The music or words from the television can help direct your dream state a little, keeping you from re-cycling your grief through your dreams. Do know, though, that our subconcious mind processes situations and helps us deal with things, so don’t avoid your dreams, though some may make you wake up sad.

Resume your place in the world. Once you feel better, go out with your friends and do things you like to take your mind off the pain. Distracting your thoughts for a while will not make you forget your friend forever. Dwelling on your own pain doesn’t honor your friend’s memory – having a big, bold life, and remembering your friend with love and affection as you do is what your friend would want you to do.

Make a scrapbook of your friend’s life. Include photos of him or her from when he or she was young through to older age. Include fond memories in this scrapbook – write captions or remembered stories next to the pictures. Look at it when you are feeling down, and share it with other friends.

Do something cool in your friend’s honor. If your friend liked to ride his or her bike, find out when the next MS ride is, and ride in your friend’s honor. Or if he or she battled cancer, check with the Cancer Society and do a Walk For the Cure or something similar. Donate any funds you raise in your friend’s name. This gives great honor to your friend’s memory, and does something positive in the world at the same time.

Don’t give yourself a hard time about not being able to assimilate into society right away. Give yourself time to deal with the blow of grief. You will find that it comes and goes in waves, you may be fine one day, and devastated the next.
If you could have helped them in one way or another don’t blame yourself. forgive yourself. easier said then done. but would your friend want you to live in misery for the rest of your life?
Loss is an incredible blow to the body and mind, it takes a long time to even wrap your head around the absence of the person you once knew, whether it was someone young or old. It is okay to have feelings of deep sadness, numbness, detachment and anger.
While you are in pain, people who have not experienced the death of a loved one may say insensitive things that are well meant, but not helpful. Gently excuse yourself from these people, now is not the time for you to have to worry about them.
You may find that you feel cut off from your other friends, or that some of them avoid you. Unfortunately, some of our closest friends just aren’t capable of dealing with death, and you may be surprised at who is able to step up to help you through this time.
You may be isolating yourself from close friends because you are afraid – to love is also to open up to potential strife and pain and perhaps even another death. Spending some time in solitude is okay but allow yourself to reach out to others who love you – even a phone call can sometimes do wonders.
The world will feel especially rough and indifferent to your grief. For you, it seems like the end of the world, and it just seems wrong that the world can go on without your friend so easily. Your loved one has died, yet people are still going out and getting their mail everyday, cars are going by, business as usual. Seek out places and things that serve as a refuge to you, even if it’s just staring at the wall for an hour. Do what you need to do to carry on, one day at a time.
This may sound impossible, but try to eat and drink and get enough sleep. Even if it’s hard, even if you are having nightmares, even if you can’t eat anything but broth. Do what you can, ask friends to be nearby, ask them to feed you, to remind you to eat, to open doors and windows and let the sunlight in. Sunlight, food, rest and hydration can all help ease turbulent emotions and make mood swings a little bit easier to handle.