The DU Lounge

...on the dead friend who I never met:

I swear she helps me out. She's dead, and I'm an atheist, but I swear she pulls me through because she pulled through. This simple maximum rings through me, through all of it, the death, the disappointments, those times of extreme loneliness, the strain, the feeling of helplessness.

I'm not you, and I don't mean to trivialize the dire things you feel, but you must do the thing you think you cannot do.

You can be a very funny guy. I don't know the details, but consider the possibility that your friends are not really "pulling away" but may simply be at a loss to know what to say but are quietly hoping you will come back to them, healed.

Hang in there. You can live through this horror, and say, "I have lived through this horror..." and thus face the next.

You can do it. We're pulling for you here at DU. We care. We really do.