Struggling because I might be losing best friend who is my emotional support

[dealzz15]

Hi, I just found out my best friend's health is getting worse and I'm not doing well at all. I feel like I haven't fully reacted to the update she shared with me about her health but I am so terrified of losing her and it just feels like my inside is screaming.

This person has been my best friend since the first day of high school and we've been through so much together and she has always been my rock with anything I've had to deal with. I don't know how much impact this has in the friendship especially since we weren't aware of it until after highschool that she also grew up in a narcissistic household. Before I figured out my family stuff she mentioned something about NPD and that was the moment I realized that all the people I've gotten close to also has had an NPD parent. We've both been through a lot of trauma and have always been there for each other. I think our friendship is beautiful and pure like I've never been close to someone else like that. The way that she is there for me has been amazing and I think she's the emotional support that I've been looking for with my parents. She creates a safe space for me where I know I can say things without being judged and she's so comforting like I can't explain the feeling I have when I visit her. I feel so much more energized and emotionally recharged and that I have the strength to do anything and continue. Like when I see her I feel whole and like I have the total freedom to be me. She pushed me to be better and to take care of myself and told me constantly to get a therapist at that point (I had one in the past but was never truthful with her like didn't share my true feelings so it wasn't effective of course). I think looking back at it now she was like my healing fantasy because I didn't have an emotionally supportive parents and they kind shuned me for showing any feelings that went against the schedule of activities that they made me do. I don't feel this anymore because I've been getting better and been feeling more connected to myself but she was one of the reasons why I wanted to live. She gave me hope and I was so excited about living close to her after college and just starting a life where we could just find peace.

So the thing is my sophomore year of college last year she started getting sick and that was really hard for me. I wasn't able to talk to her every day and even though we weren't in the same location we used to ft like everyday. Looking back at it now I think I had/have an anxious attachment style to her and that was really hard with her getting sick because she stopped responding quickly. I think that pushed me to not doing well at all and in the middle of the winter my friends at my college pushed me to get a therapist which I did because I admitted that I needed one and I stopped playing my sport in college. I had so many unprocessed traumas from childhood and was experiencing the physical pain of the unprocessed memories in a new environment and thought that I had ptsd for a certain trauma that happened in highschool but now realize that it was cptsd for everything I experienced, it was just that the certain trauma turned on my  fight or flight and that was the beginning when I couldn't keep going anymore because of the trauma in my body.

Ok sorry a little off track so as I was dealing with this on my own and with my new therapist, my best friend's health has been getting significantly worse and she was diagnosed with multiple co-occuring diagnoses that were all really serious. Like all her problems feel like worst case sceneros which is usually an exaggeration but it really does feel like the worst case scenario does happen. I don't really remember all the updates because it would get to me if I look too much into it and rumminate about it but in the summer last year she had literally 50 different diagnosis. 

Fast forward because I really can't get into the details, this fall she really wasn't doing well.

Sorry this is long, its hard to tell this story without context and I'm getting to the point rn. So now I just got an update text from her saying her health has been declining even more and that nothing is working including her immune system and she can't see anyone in public anymore,can't eat or drink, and that shes in so much pain and her dr doesn't know what else to do and that's back to a level of unstable.

Ever since I got this text on Thursday I have been losing my mind. I just feel so weird and upset that I feel like I'm breaking down even around my friends or when I go to class. I've been disassociating in class thinking about losing her and not even realizing that I'm not hearing the teacher at all. I haven't been able to get rid of the physical feeling of discomfort inside and just feel like my body is screaming in pain and I feel such a heavy hurt in my heart. That thursday night when I was trying to sleep I was having such an urge to throw myself out the window or to do something so I wouldn't have to deal with this. I think its my coping mechanism from high school when I don't want to deal with something because I was heavily suicidical from all the things my parents forced me to do and it seemed like that was the only thing that would make it stop, but I haven't felt that way for a long time since high school and its coming back but I would never do anything especially because my best friend is alive. It just feels like she's the only thing that's making me hold on and I think that if she's gone that I'm going to have no one. It's like she's atlas holding up my world and once she's gone everything is going to crumble. I just feel so much pain and feel so scared about losing her and every update is just more evidence that she's going to die. I'm so scared about losing her and I feel like I'm just going to lose my mind. I want more than anything for her to be ok and safe and its so hard. I already accepted how things are out of my control but I feel like I'm being changed to a chair and forced to watch her fade away. I want to take away all her pain but there's nothing I can do. I can't even bring her joy in her life because she spends the majority of her time sleeping.

I'm just feel so lost and powerless and alone. I genuine don't know what to do at this point or how to cope with any of this. I'm someone who always tries to find a solution but I know that there isn't one. I don't know what I can do to get to terms with this. I think the first step is though that I need to find a way to cope with this loss and mourn it even if she's not dying yet. It's just at a point though like I don't know how she's going to make it and it keeps making me go into a spiral.

If anyone knows a way to find peace with this or ways to cope id greatly appreciate it. I just feel like a mess and don't even know where to start or how to not fall apart. I just feel so much pain

[Starboard Song]

dealzz,

We have links on our Emergency Resources page that may help. Even if you don't feel that you are in an emergency, they can help you find resources you need. I so get it. I've told my wife many and many a time that I can't imagine processing all this alone.

Be good. Be strong.

[JenniferSmith]

It sounds like this person has been extremely important in your life, and your friendship and connection with her has met many, many needs - empathy, understanding, shared reality, trust, stability, and more.  A single person can make such a huge impact in our life, and sometimes we may not even completely realize just how impactful they are until the threat of losing them appears.

In the short-term, I hope you can find ways to calm yourself, allow yourself to feel the feelings, cry, express your worries and fears, and be kind to yourself. Grief can be intensely painful, but it is the natural process with any loss. I've found it can help to think about grief as like waves in the ocean... they rise, they peak, and then fall away. That is what our emotions do during grief. It can feel so scary as the feeling/wave is rising, rising, rising... we think it will never stop, that it will drown us. But the emotions do come back down. Then we get some rest, and ease, and eventually another wave comes. As time passes, the waves get smaller and smaller, but they never go away. Twenty years after a loss, something might remind us of that person and a wave will hit us. But by then we feel stronger and not so afraid of the waves.

Given that your friend is still here, perhaps it might help to write her a letter and tell her what her friendship has meant and means to you. Put it all out there, don't hold anything back. And then decide if maybe you'd like to send that to her. I know with someone I lost, I really poured my heart out to them before they passed, and looking back, I am very happy I did that, because it felt so good to know that I shared so openly and honestly with them. It will be healing for you to write that letter. Also, imagine what getting such a letter might mean to your friend.  I think all of us want to know that we mattered, that we made a difference, that others care about us and love us. Given your friend's health, a letter would allow her to read it (or have it read to her) when she has a bit more energy and alertness.

Last, I am going to share one of my favorite quotes about friendship - "Each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."  Anais Nin