Finding Strength for My Health Journey in the Grief of My Friend

The loss of one of my closest friends was heartbreaking, and it’s something I still grieve. Yet, in that pain, I was forced to confront what truly matters — and it reminded me to cherish and take care of the life I have.

I don’t know how to start this piece, so I’ll begin with when I met Liza. She was in California, getting ready to apply to a master’s in social work program so she could assist and advocate for people with mental health conditions.

I was across the country, slipping and sliding on the Michigan ice and trying to keep my head above water in my inorganic chemistry class. I was hanging by a thread, relying on a very attractive third-year psychiatry resident who saw me on a weekly basis.

Throughout the academic year, he was working his ass off to keep me out of the inpatient psychiatric unit at the university hospital. I had significant challenges.

Back then, I didn’t have health insurance, so I could hardly afford my Seroquel, which was $800 at that time. And my moods were rapid-cycling so fast and furiously that I couldn’t predict how I would feel from one day to the next.

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Building a friendship based on mutual understanding

While my three roommates slept through the night, drooling on their pillows, I danced to music and relentlessly surfed the internet. And that’s where I met Liza. We both wanted to help people with mental health conditions. I slithered near the door to our apartment as quietly as possible and spent hours talking with her.

As it turned out, she had a mood disorder, too, and we could easily relate to each other. We’d both been hospitalized, and we both knew what it felt like to be suicidal. It was as if I were gazing into a mirror of my own depression.

She never made me feel like I needed to rescue her, instead focusing on my own latest hospitalizations, medication changes, and sessions in therapy. Liza never let on that she was feeling sad — even in the worst of it.

Recollecting her steadfast support

That was 20 years ago, and so much has happened since then. As I’m writing this, I can still hear her cheerful voice saturating my cellphone. If she was depressed, she never let on to me.

And she was — there were phone calls from hospitals. But she downplayed it every time, instead focusing on my own struggles, like the death of my father, my dips into depression, and the pain of my own unrelenting anxiety. Liza never wanted to burden her friends with her problems.

We compared our treatments, too. We both cycled through inpatient hospitalizations and partial hospital programs. When you find someone who gets it, you have to hang on for good. Liza was a lifelong friend. When my mother told her that I was in the hospital, she immediately called me through the hospital phone, offering the unwavering support that’s so important when you’re going through a severe depressive episode.

Liza was probably one of my very best friends, and I feel that way even now that she’s passed away due to complications from a surgical procedure. She has so many friends. Just check out Facebook for proof. She was a special person, unlike anyone else I’ve ever met in my entire life.

Grappling with a devastating loss

Sometimes, I absolutely hate the phone. I just don’t have the energy to keep up with a conversation. Even though I loved my conversations with Liza, there were still times when my depression made me not want to pick up. Shortly before Liza passed away, she called me, and I didn’t accept the call.

I had no way of knowing that within the next week, I would lose the opportunity to speak with one of my very best friends again. Life is so uncertain like this. I saw that someone was calling my cellphone, turned it the other way around, and went back to sleep.

When I found out on Facebook that she’d passed away, I was furious with myself. I’d missed out on the chance to speak with one of my very best friends in the whole wide world. Now, who would call me when I was in the hospital and dealing with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) treatments?

How many of my other friends would love me unconditionally like Liza did? She had a beautiful spirit and never judged a soul. Like me, she struggled with depression, and we shared ways to get through the worst of it.

Liza was also a mental health advocate, like me, and we always talked about going to the National Alliance for Mental Illness conference, but we couldn’t get it together.

Transforming grief into grit

You know a friendship is special when you can maintain it for 20 years. I still have the last voicemail she left me on my cellphone, and I keep listening to it as if it could bring her back. I think about her when the anesthesiologist sidles up to my bedside to inject the sedatives that will put me under for my ECT treatments.

But I know that Liza is cheering me on through the worst of all my fears.

Liza’s death came as a complete surprise to me. For days after I got the news, I couldn’t stop crying. In my therapist’s office, I was sobbing to the point of madness. It also brought up the death of my father.

But her death also motivated me to take better care of myself and to value my own life more. Her death reminded me that life is so short and that I need to make the most of it.

This tough reminder continues to push me to focus on taking care of my depression — to go to my ECT treatments, to focus on eating well, sleeping well, and exercising. Liza’s death was like a jolt that made me focus on all the things I need to do to live a better, healthier life.

My grief has even taught me to value my other friendships more.

Takeaway

We’re only on this planet for a short while, so we need to make it count. There are so many people I would give my left arm to see again. I’ll never forget the sweet, positive attitude Liza infused in my life, even when she was struggling herself.

The world will never, ever be the same without her. But I know that she would want me to get something from her death. This means I’ll do whatever it takes to fight the battle that is depression.

And I will win!