You keep her memory alive by keeping her in your and our thoughts. I don't see a problem with that.

I don't talk about her because it seems to me that it's been a topic of discussion that I have no right to mourn her.

Only a bit more subtle than my friend telling me to shut up because she didn't care what I was talking about.

I did try to talk about her in the what are you reading, but as is usual that got posted all around but upside down.

Many of us miss her. We all grieve differently. Some of us have survivor's guilt. Some are hanging onto the meds and the therapy and the psychiatry so hard we're leaving fingernail marks even when we don't have fingernails, sad with the knowledge that a great, loving, and talented person is gone, and knowing our presence or lack thereof doesn't mean much one way or another, and that the stint in the bin that probably saved our life could've been foregone without much wailing and gnashing of teeth. And stomachs hurt and eyes leak and confusion rules the day. I don't think I'm alone, except of course, for the fact that I am alone.

I am sorry for everyone who is hurting, I feel for all of us who miss her, and I know we all do. I've been ashamed to say anything, feeling like I have no right. So here it is, in an inappropriate thread, but I finally said it and I hope that it is a good thing. Or at least, not a very bad thing. :(

More of my double pennies.

It must be real subtle, because I missed it entirely. I don't recall seeing anything like that anywhere. Can you point to a link? You have every right to mourn her, and I don't think anyone had any expectation that you were her keeper and could somehow prevent it. She had free will and was going to do what she was going to do. If we could turn back the clock, we would all do things differently, but we did the best we could at the time.

It's just a paranoid 'what's happenin' behind the scenes' feeling. I take the other cues and jump to conclusions. I never said I was correct. I was expressing how I feel, how it seems 'to me' using aforementioned cues and clues.

And knowing that I'd probably be labeled an attention ho, or ignored entirely, or both (behind the scenes, again) when I wrote this...knowing I could be made to feel shame for that post....it's just the risk I took for myself.

In my head, I already hear the cluck-clucking. But I don't care. I've said what I wanted to say. And that is done.

Yes, I am paranoid...but a part of that is because I'm pretty good at reading into things...like silences.

Well, I debated ignoring your post because I thought you might take my response as an attack, and I mean to support you, not attack you. But then ignoring your post would be just as bad. Probably worse. You are going to feel what you feel, and I don't want to deny you your feelings. I just think you're wrong. I certainly don't blame you for Bri's death, and I can't imagine anyone else thinking that either. I could be wrong. I've been oblivious to stuff in the Cellar before. But if anyone blames you for her death, they couldn't be more wrong.

There were plenty of signs, and I did nothing. But I thought she was going to work through it again like she always had in the past. I was wrong. I wish I had reacted differently, but even if I had done something drastic, what were we supposed to do, have someone guard her 24/7?

We gave her a community that supported her.

And this is the talk I wanted to have, and was afraid to have.

I cry every day. Not only because of the loss of Tril, the loss of my friends Charlie, Bruce, my dad's best friend like an uncle to me...all recent...all the bad things that have been happening...but because of my life. I am working on getting better so hard. I am working at work so hard. I am afraid my depression will win. So it's all right in my face, you know? I know I can do this. I really do...but it's there, in the back of my mind, and it's freaking scary.

I'm sorry. Shouldn't hijack grav's thread. I just don't know how to sort it out to make it make sense to anyone, least of all me.

Thanks glatt.

Interesting and true dichotomy for me anyway. I didn't have much to give her when she asked me a direct question about my breakup with alcohol. I told her what I did, but she needed more and I didn't play out the string. I think we all knew we could only do so much, but I could have given more. Anything that was said that IM felt pointed at her points at me and probably many of us.

I can write an entire novel in my head about what people are thinking of me and how I'm being judged, etc., etc. The reality is that my "War and Peace" is actually a 4 word note that someone tried to pass to me in the 3rd grade and got confiscated by teacher instead who threw it out without reading it. When the entire class went silent, it was because the test on fractions had just been handed out and everyone got panicked, trying to figure out the correct result for the addition of 3/4 + 7/8.

I strongly suspect that this is what's happening with you as well, IM. Sometimes people are silent because there is nothing coherent left to say in face of tragedy.

I haven't been on the Cellar for some days lately; but I still found (and find) that I think of Brianna often. I let her down. We weren't BFF's, but we were both alcoholics. Alcoholics read another drunk's words or talk to another alcoholic and they just KNOW. The experience of feeling that horrible despair, facing those Four Horsemen and being unable to imagine life either with or without alcohol make us members of an exclusive group that instantly recognizes complete strangers if they are one of us.

Brianna's posts often worried me, but instead of reaching out to her, I figured she had people here who could be her friends IRL; she'd be OK, blah, blah. And I shrugged her off. I didn't extend myself to send her PM's until the very end when it was too late.

If blame should fall on anyone here, I should be among the first. I've been to those same awful places where Brianna fought her demons. I've fought many of those demons of my own. I attempted suicide at least 3 times when my drinking became completely out of control and I couldn't endure the horrid, souless life I was living for one more minute - never mind an hour and certainly not a day.

Brianna/Trilb posted toward the last that AA had let her down. I don't know about AA in Ohio, but on the Cellar, THIS AA member read those posts and thought "not my job." Wrong. We alcoholics keep our sobriety by giving it away. I didn't give Bri a damn thing other than a couple of PM's at the end that were too little, too late.

I allowed my pathetic memory of a couple of stupid tiffs she and I had a million years ago as an excuse. Now I wish I'd sent her so many PM's (whether she'd have been delighted to get them or disgusted) that she would have gotten enraged with me and stayed sober just to show me how little I actually know about anything.

Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.

Sometimes silence is just silence..

Bri in her last 2 weeks sent me private messages and they were mostly upbeat. It was her public posts that let me know she was in trouble. I shared this fear with another dweller. She was not in control of her life, how could anyone who was not right there 24/7 control it for her?

I have had a few friends that are not in control of their life, one who spent 12 years "riding the dragon". 8 months forced jail kicked that habit but I see by her posts on FB she is doing other drugs now. :( I can't help her she would probably steal my purse. She has before.

Guilt is a self inflicted feeling. Maybe I know too many people that have taken their own life. Those poor dear souls that could not face another day and nothing anyone could do would make the ending different.

^wss^

Some people have been quiet because that's how they mourn and remember; others have shared because that's how they mourn and remember. It's not about blame.

People who worry what others think about them, would be shocked to find how little they do.

Shit, Shawnee.
Now I feel bad about ranting on and on about missing Bri and how much it hurts.

You did as much as me.
More, probably as I feel I did so little.
She said you'd spoken when I called, but guess what? I called drunk sometimes.
Pretty shitty, right.

I'd go toe to toe with anyone here that thought you were in any way guiltly for what happened. And you know she would have too.
But maybe that was our Irish fighting heritage (yeah, okay - old joke but it always got a laugh out of her.)

I care too much about you to think you should suffer for something you have no responsibiity for. Life has thrown enough in your path. Don't borrow more trouble. Bri still loved you and she'd have smacked you upside the head if she knew what you were thinking now.

Take my love instead.
And smacks.
When my boat comes in of course...

See, though, that wasn't my point. You have every right to express your feelings about Bri.

I was expressing my feelings too. How I feel. Inside.

Thanks to those who understood that, including you, Sundae. To those who took the chance to point out my thoughts were fucked up: shame on you. Big shame on you.

I know it wasn't your point, chick.
If I thought you were whinging I'd have sent you a PM.
And it would have been a little cross.
But I know you loved her too, so all I'm worried about is what you are doing to yourself.
I mean, who knows. Maybe if Bri was here she'd call you a bitch and a dumb cunt.

Yeah, okay she wouldn't because it's not justified.
But one thing that lady wasn't, was shy in coming forward.

Stay true girl. We're already down a third. And I'll be next.
You gotta hold on to be the last one standing.
Mebbe you'll even get a tramp stamp in our memory :lol: