Not sure where exactly to put this…it ticks so many boxes, disenfranchised, too young, prolonged grief, does it ever get better, sudden/traumatic loss…

Condensed version…Jennifer was killed in a single vehicle accident on the morning of Oct 17, 1988 on her way to school.  She was a very close and dear friend, and if I am being honest, I loved her.  Being a teenager at the time, unable to competently deal with the devastation of the loss, I handled it poorly.  Sure, there was the initial shock.  I didn’t eat for three days.  Sleep was only NyQuil induced.  I went from smoking one or two cigarettes a day to a pack a day overnight.  I cried, and for so long.  I didn’t go back to college for at least 3 weeks.  Left alone…Left behind.  I was angry!  Betrayed by God!  My friends either didn’t understand the degree of our connection (and loss) or themselves were poorly equipped to help, or both.  I was numb, present but not functionally aware.  (I remember a girl approaching me at the funeral, throwing her arms around me and saying, “Oh Thad, I am so sorry!”  When she left us, my mom asked who it was, and I didn’t know!  Couldn’t remember.  Completely dazed.)  But mostly, I stuffed it down, deep, so that I wouldn’t have to fully bear the loss.  Eventually, it seemed to work.  Life went on.  The holidays.  New school.  New girlfriend, that later became my wife.  Time passed and the daily reminder faded within a couple years.  The new normal emerged.  Life became good.

Fast forward 30 years, Summer 2018, I have two very vivid dreams…with Jennifer in them.  Why now?  In the first, she was very much present, but in more of a supporting actress role and not the focus of the story.  Could have been any number of people in that ‘role’.  A few weeks later…BAMMM!  If it didn’t get my attention the first time, well this one was determined to.  I was laying down with a royal blue, shag afghan over me.  She was snuggled up with me, on top of the afghan, head resting on my leg.  We were talking.  We were close and comfortable and relaxed…and not real.

WTF?!?

Why now?  What triggered this?  What’s wrong with me?  All unanswered questions, but suddenly Jennifer was back in my thoughts, daily, hourly, all the time.

(Very few of my friends from that time knew Jennifer, our social circles just touched at the point of us.  We had an enormous depth of honesty that developed from not having to worry about the ramifications and judgments that could surface if someone else in the social circle accidentally was exposed to these thoughts. Any of her friends that would know of me, if even remembered now, have scattered into varying degrees of ‘lost contact’ status.  People that know me today, well, let’s face facts, it is not normal to be blubbering over something that happened that long ago.  Normal people process, adapt, then restore.  That leaves my still raw, unbelievable grief, initially reliving it with the same force as though the accident happened in the Summer of 2018.  PLEASE!  Use this as an example of what not to do when grieving the loss of a loved one.  The process is inescapable.)

I feel sad (duh), confused (why is this hitting me 30+ years later), disenfranchised (we were ‘just’ friends and I don’t feel that I have the same claim to hurt as a sibling, parent, or spouse would have, despite the family openly and warmly embracing me after coming out of the darkness 30 years later), so overwhelmingly tired of feeling (and guilty for feeling this way…like asking her memory to be gone), and basically lost (which not a new feeling for me either)…

I have engaged therapists, standard talking style and EMDR, which did lessen the uncontrolled emotional responses.  Sought out Mediums, other ‘spirits’ came to that party.  Tried to willfully manifest her in dreams to seek her ‘direct’ council, she is not having it.  While avoiding her family in the first 30 years (I told myself out of respect for them, they had just lost a family member and what would my presence do to help?), I did reach out to her family and met with them a couple times (probably the most healing thing that I have done).  Joined a support group locally, where I do feel self-conscious and crazy, but, as time has gone on and my story shared, I have been welcomed.

I attended 6 funerals of friends before my 20^th birthday, this was not my first rodeo.  The degree of our connection perhaps explains why this is the person I would be the most torn up about, but when does the hurt stop?  How was I able to pull it off for 28 years and now not be able to shut it off?  Does it get better?