Manu has taken his own life. Her best friend is left with agonizing questions: could I Have some ancestors? I would have to bring with you to the doctor? What a friendship that was between us? Our guest author has spoken with her.
“Manu has done it”. Wiebke needed no further coaxing. My gut knew it immediately: My girlfriend was dead. He knew it, although the head had pushed away.
Three days earlier, Manu had been sitting here with me in the kitchen and the world through the soft focus seen. The fight with the Ex about the kids? “Is.” The MRP on the stop… “prosperity problem,” she said. And then, quite abruptly, this sentence: “Sometimes I think, this makes no sense.”
It hides what could happen. Thinks, that such Statements are for a change of course: I want to change.
“The motorway bridge just before the exit in the direction of the city…” more talked Wiebke. Why? Of course, this question comes first. But what comes then, throws back the responsibility on you. What would have happened if? If I cooked a Cup of coffee, you go wouldn’t have let in that day? To brought if I’d have kept you, a doctor would have you in a clinic?
She was no longer the funky Manu, I had geernt know
I let me hide? Potential suicide candidates, so it seems to me, to do the like: ambiguous signals to send. Here is the Drama, because of the ease. Difficult for outsiders to interpret the Back-and-Forth. Difficult also because the irritated unconscious seems on first impression. Manu – the funky. So, I had learned, you know, and so I wanted to have you, also, if the image had long cracks.
It was an act of liberation, after six years as a full time mummy to my application at that time at the community College. Nude model wanted for a painting class. And then you stand next to me, the “colleague”: tall, slim, funny Gestures, good sayings. To do ridiculous, in addition to a uptight. So I pulled myself out.
Later on, I gave up, it would have surprised me that she was a mother. The conversation: in the pub, after the course. You: long skirts, Curls wild. I: blouse, Blazer, even after a long break from the Job to perform like a Banker. Two women from two worlds, you might have thought. In this case, each of us realized the strangeness of the other, stunned.
“The Crazy”, as my children called them. I see us on my Vespa, in a Bikini, yodelling. So began our friendship.
Her husband knew well how quickly the mood could be in their butts
Seemed home but they to be a other been. Put boxes on the wall. The tenant of a small garden. The suitcase radio is where we introduced to the Country, the terrace was on the Karaoke stage. Their two children: excited. Her husband shook only the head. Knew how quickly the mood in your tilt. And how important is the perfect world scenario for you.
He knew you may be much better than thought? That was a mistake: that we have met then at some point only for me – where no one shook the head? Our friendship has been an island. In A Parallel World. Cinema, Shopping? Uninteresting. Most of the time we were sitting in the kitchen, late in the evening, the kids were already in bed. Drank coffee, talked. Did without the women’s usual counselor-Talk. I found this great because: of life want to be lived.
The suicidal life? The question afterwards is only now. On the other hand: Where would I have to set? Long, it was only I that was here and there, specifically, the mother-in-law by the cocoa moved, the heavy pull of the children to defendant. While she was talking on the Meta-level, just don’t have the banalities of Everyday life. So she is a free spirit, I thought. But was it really?
What part of you should die?
Again and again I see you now in the doorway to sit at our last Meeting before she left. Verratztes T-Shirt, tattered Jeans. They found you in these things? She was dead right? And: Who should die? What part of her? And what would have liked to have lived?
Jeans, T-Shirt… totally untypical actually. A Rescue Call? All their Outfits were, like, a key. Could be… as she wore two years ago, suddenly, Blazer and pleated trousers. Experimentation, I thought. She was a seeker, never arrived. Family Celebrations, Birthdays, Socializing. “I know you not”, had meant, when I told of our weekends. Whether the came to collapse even faster, because: The more designed the facade, the greater is the danger of collapse?
“Ask her yourself,” said Wiebke, the course Director, a lot to say, as a Manu at the same time a couple of Times, not for Modeling came from. Possible that you could the a customer: which problems to address, and maybe even from illness to talk.
Help for members
The Internet platform, “friends for life” provides assistance in case of an imminent suicide. The AGUS is a nationwide self-help organization for Bereaved who have lost a close person through suicide. More information is available at the German society for suicide prevention. A directory of advising offices is available here: Suizidprophylaxe.de
Of depression, you never spoke
“First the car broke down. Now the kids are sick“ – your reasons were understandable. From a gut feeling, I decided this lightning visit. She made, in her night-shirt, whimpering. “I did, and at such lows,” she says later. Depression – you never said. It took until I learned more.
Manus Mother: An Alcoholic. The father ran away because she was still a child. “You don’t want the others to see the mom babbling on the Couch. Don’t invent better stories, which is why visits to go.“ So, you come so, the optimist, comedian. The actual, fragile Inside: long, well-Packed.
“I can’t do this”, I had said a few months before her death. She had started a relationship with a buddy of her husband. The condom was ripped. she was pregnant. “Not a question of the child,” she said. But you knew how I feel about abortion. I remained hard. And you are not accompanied to the doctor.
Wiebke told by another Manu
Wiebke was the one that drove you to have an abortion. And other manuscripts brought back. The moved to the side of the road, when a woman with children came to the car. And having Affairs with strange men – as you want to the world to avenge started on the men, for what had happened to her.
If we look now at me in the kitchen met and that coffee I offered, she asked: do you Have champagne? Trying the lipstick on a pig. But then came the affair with John. “Taken at the supermarket,” she said. In the Liquor area, I guessed. With a clear head like you never done that: everything would be left behind, even the children, for one of those.
She had been on drugs, it said
Musty Shack, mattress on the floor, so she and John lived. Dreamt of a house by the sea, the children could hardly wait. The children took care of in the meantime, the youth welfare office. Her hair was greasy, the nails stopped, “a lot to do,” she said, as we saw us then. You stand next to paralyzed. Makes things that, in retrospect, a bit Macabre. This SMS writes: “are you still Alive?” On the other hand, The message seemed to be arrived, she came a few Times to visit, most recently on the day before her death.
“Tragic accident” as it was in the newspaper. I see you right in front of me, the mourning congregation. The We-have-faces-as-like-to-help -. Bracket: if only we knew what.
She had been on drug that night, said all of the drugs had come from him. Spooky, that is: to not have Anyone you can remember. To stand at the grave, cares about no one, ivy and moss to cover them.
But when I drink here with me in the kitchen seats and coffee, then she’s there, I see your Curls, your Laugh. Feel how we allow ourselves to be. Respect – great word. By Manu it became real. And that’s why I haven’t made up my mind to do one if I have to do now on the day of her death, the fair reader: So, as I would have done something by now if there had been instructions. Truths are sometimes contradictory, and where, if not in the Church, you can say so what: that one is grateful for this friendship, which was bigger than all the others. And at the same time so helpless.
“I don’t like” – How you respond to it properly, when a friend of suicide-expresses thoughts
Georg Fiedler, former Deputy Chairman of the German society for suicide prevention, there are three pieces of advice for dealing with people who leave suicide intentions be known:
- People with suicidal intentions are ambivalent. You don’t want to die necessarily, but know how you can live on. This inner struggle can and must offer support. It is helpful, the own feelings. About: “If you’re talking about, not me, wanted to live you more.”
- Very important: Statements such as “I” don’t like must not be downplayed, even if one appears to be the Problem itself null and void.
- Away from common myths such as: “Who is talking about it, don’t do it.” Or: “If you talk to it, happens to the suicide.” This is all bullshit. Instead of dealing with questionable prophecies to stop, one should endeavour rather to the fact that the person to professional help seeking. We also tell families by the way: you can offer support, but there are limits. As a Partner or friend is not a therapist.