Trigger warning: mentions of ‘self deletion’, mental health and the death of a loved one.
So I’m at a bar at a concert with some friends and I went outside to have a cigarette. (Still sober, seven months, it’s going smoothly). I read through some old Facebook memories and I came across this. And it’s so fucked up to look back at. Because on that day, I didn’t know.
Written on the 21st of June, 2019
At around this time, 5-6 in the morning on the 21st of June, it’ll be a year since I was sent to the hospital in an ambulance after a severe overdose.
And after waking up from a coma in Intensive Care hours upon hours later, when I was finally able to actually think and reflect again, I remember thinking that a year from then my life would be so much better and I would be living life to the fullest.
Well, back then, even when I was awake, back into the world and breathing on my own again, they said the chances I’d survive the week after my body took such a huge impact, were really, really, REALLY slim.
Despite living on borrowed time a year ago, my life seems even bleaker a year later. I just don’t feel like I’m going anywhere at all, and it sucks. I’ve lost almost all faith in myself and the few abilities I have, I feel mostly apathetic most of the time, when I’m not super paranoid and scared, my life is literally just watching TV shows and planning to lose weight but not really doing anything to get out of the house.
But I didn’t fight and survive to live another year to take it for granted. If I’ve learned anything this past year, it’s that life is worth living, there’s always something. So that’s what I’m holding on to. Things will change. Good times will come. I’ll try my best to keep the little faith that I’ve got left.
That very same day, unbeknownst to me, my best friend left this world. He took his own life.
Now, when I think about this day, I think about him. I dread the 21st of June. It all comes back to me, and it just left me a sobbing mess in my friend’s arms.
I didn’t know he was dead until the 3rd of September, what should have been his 23rd birthday. And I found out on Facebook by a fellow friend. Johannes wasn’t exactly the social type, so we met on his terms every time. I would text and I’d get a reply when he was better. And that could sometimes take literal months. . He’d text, and we were a group that always met up at a bar. Him, his brother, their cousin and a friend. All guys, all in their 20s when I met them at 19. And God, they were the best. They would buy me drinks and if someone screwed with me, they’d be happy to throw fists. If I had a bad night, they would walk me home to make sure I got there safe. Once, after one of those nights, all four of them bundled up in my small living room and slept over. Then they took me to get burgers the next day. Aside from those rare bad times, we’d have so much fun and just drink and laugh and play pool.
When Johannes had a good period, he’d call me to hang out, often at absurd hours. Once he called me at 5 am, and he asked me if I wanted to go get some coffee. When the only place that had coffee he actually liked, didn’t open until 10. So he would come up to my place and we’d sit there and talk about random stuff until they opened, and we went down to the coffee place. I’d wait patiently, because I didn’t drink coffee, I liked milkshakes. We’d go to the milkshake place afterwards, and he always poked fun at me for it. But I knew it was with love. It always was.
I miss that man so, so much, and it breaks my heart that he’s been gone for seven years already. The dumbass would have LOVED covid, because he’d have an excuse to not leave the house. But before that, he didn’t ever need to have one. We all understood him. He was really mentally ill, always wearing wrist warmers to hide from the world. I never saw what he was covering up, but I didn’t need to. I knew. We shared that pain.
A few months after the big overdose, I tried again. He sat with me in the hospital when I was in the ICU for three days, held my hand, sang some stupid song he’d made up on a fishing trip up north with his dad and brother, to the tune of DuckTales. He never told me not to do it again, because we understood each other fully. That sometimes, it feels like there’s just one way to stop the pain. He wouldn’t hate me if I died, just like I would never hate him for it.
I just wish I’d been there for him like he was for me.
I saw him for the last time on the 16th of May in 2019. We were at the pub and he’d snatched my wig off my head. I was bald because of a medical mishap, and I wore wigs to hide it, because I was so ashamed. I started crying, I was so embarrassed, didn’t want others to see. But he put it on his own head and lit up a cigarette. When I begged for it back, he told me that it doesn’t matter what others think. That I was good enough with or without the wigs. That if people stared, let them stare. And somehow, his words got through to me.
He taught me a lot that day.
Because people thought he was a weirdo, and he fully embraced that. He knew that the term “those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind” was legit. And however much that guy hated himself in the shadows, he was always a beacon for our entire crew. The glue that held the five of us together. That’s why we fell apart and went our separate ways after he died. We had him for a time, and since we didn’t have anything else in common, things went their natural course when he was gone.
God, I miss him. Rest in peace, buddy. 
