Letting go of best friend?

LegacyUser

Ok, firstly sorry my heads all over the place, I'm not sure exactly where im going with this, I will have a few questions for now its just a rant.


The person who I consider to be my "best and closest" i've know for roughly 4 years.
We became friends in 5th Year at school and it was instant friendship and we became very close, very fast. so much so we considered eachother to be family.
I'd confied everything with him, and sometimes him to I.

Then when we left school I started work and he went off to college. things changed (as they do) we didnt see eachother as much, we got to hangout once a week and catch up etc but he was changing very fast. falling in with the cliques and cliches of college going out with the crowd no exceptions (can hardly blame a person there) then it was the same when he started work. Basically followed the work crowd out every weekend, no exeptions!
He became alot less responsive to phonecalls and text etc.

Then whenever we'd hangout during the week to catch up, I started getting the feeling that he'd just wanted to be somewhere else at the time with other people (Rather pretentiously)
Never was the best from hiding his true feelings.
Basically im (reluctantly) starting to feel less close to him.

He informed me yesterday that he's moving away to Scotland for the summer with a friend, at first i was gutted, i thought i was going to lose a close friend to some twat. We had plans since last year to travel, however his new plans with new friends seem top priority. As a goof friend would i bit my tongue and wished him the best of luck.
However I was elated when we started making plans to hang out and do stuff for when he returned.

Now heres the weird part (sorry longer rant than i expected)
It's happened to me before however i never wished it to happen in this case.
I've recently started to imagine my friend dying (no specific way) just stuff like what i'd say at his funeral what would i say to his family etc and picturing continuing my life without him in the equation, like who would i go to for comfort, how would i get over his death.
Then I relaised i wasnt afraid of missing him anymore.

Is the fact that I keep imaging my "closest" friend dying over an over again to the point where i cant potentially miss his presence a genuinely bad thing?

Bob the Builder

To be honest, your imagination is telling you a lot about your own true feelings as well.

I'm 15, currently recovering from my two friends dying by suicide within one week of each other. I began having dreams about numerous people(and even the people who had died), that they would die, and what would I say at their funeral. It's showing very much lack of security on your part tbh. I can relate to your feelings, and there's no point suppresing them, but rather you should understand that it's your true feelings speaking.

Your friendship is still a friendship and probably will be, but it just won't be as close, as you can expect that he will find new friends and, you will be a normal friend just like anyone else.

What you may find, is that his personality may change after being away, so be prepared to adapt to it when he comes back.

RedXIV

nevf wrote: »

To be honest, your imagination is telling you a lot about your own true feelings as well.

I'm 15, currently recovering from my two friends dying by suicide within one week of each other. I began having dreams about numerous people(and even the people who had died), that they would die, and what would I say at their funeral. It's showing very much lack of security on your part tbh. I can relate to your feelings, and there's no point suppresing them, but rather you should understand that it's your true feelings speaking.

Your friendship is still a friendship and probably will be, but it just won't be as close, as you can expect that he will find new friends and, you will be a normal friend just like anyone else.

What you may find, is that his personality may change after being away, so be prepared to adapt to it when he comes back.

+1

College changes people, and it's very hard to stay friends with people who in secondary school it seemed impossible not to be around. I had massive groups of friends in secondary school and i'd say i keep in regular contact with 4 of them. College friends are people who are joined in the same interests as opposed to simply being the same age and chucked together in a class.

The fact that you don't seem to mind in this imagination could very well be your subliminal mind telling you that you aren't as close, but don't think that it's simulating exactly what would happen. Organise events with your friends and try contacting once a week by email or something. It's hard to keep these friends in contact but not impossible

How Strange

People change and grow alot in their late teens and early-mid 20's. There's nothing wrong with it; it's just part of growing up. I think going to college accelerates this.

The thoughts of your friends death is your subconscious telling your conscious that really your friendship has drifted to the point that you don't feel you have anything in common anymore.

I'd say leave the door open for your friend to come back. He's experiencing all sorts of new things at the moment but he may very likely realise that he misses your friendship over the next year or so.

LegacyUser

@ OP

Hi,

First of all, sorry to hear about your friendship going down the drain. Dealing with losing a friend can be difficult, especially if you still have contact with them and keep thinking of the "what if's" of the situation.

I've also gone through a similar situation to yourself with the losing a friend thing, not in the same situation, but similar. I'm due to finish college soon and will be saying goodbye to all of my friends. I started to have dreams/daydreams about my friends dying and their funerals, what I'd say, who I'd talk to, basically similar to yours.

I've been going through some other stuff and have been seeing a counsellor about it, and I happened to mention my dreams to her one day and she said that it's perfectly normal to have these dreams in a time of change, that death doesn't nescessarily mean dying, it just means that you're accepting a change within your life. So try not to be freaked out about them!!

Don't feel ashamed of your feelings - people change, grow up, grow apart, but at the end of the day your friends will always be there. You don't need to travel with them/see them every day/spend every waking moment with them to stay friends.

Good luck with the friendship.