Ask Amy: Friend feels selfish with response to grief
Dear Amy: My childhood friend of almost 50 years recently lost a child to suicide. We usually only call one another on our birthdays, and I have not physically seen her in almost 20 years.
I have struggled most of my life with PTSD resulting from a sexual abuse trauma when I was 17.
I really did not begin healing until my current physician diagnosed me and referred me to a specialist for therapy.
Suicides always send me to a dark place because it was riding my shoulder for so many years.
My friend did not notify me personally; she posted the news to Facebook.
I saw that she was receiving a lot of support, and I could not bring myself to call her.
Months passed, and instead I wrote her a letter of apology for my lack of communication, and expressed as well as I know how the sorrow I felt for her in dealing with her terrible loss.
She has not reached out to me.
I am riddled with guilt over my reaction to her loss. I usually reach out to people who have lost loved ones in a timely manner.
She has had a rough life, but in the last 25 years she remarried and took life by the horns and has done quite well.
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