Most of of "official" media such as newspapers and TV news are enforcing the negativity in this world. There are more kindness coming from people than what is displayed there. I encourage you to have a look at Good News Network, they even have newsletters, which I read every day to remind myself that the world is doing better than we think.
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I think you did your best. He has lucky of having a friend like you
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Most people in a bad spot dream of having a friend like you (and your group). But they don't, and probably never will. That's just the sad reality of things. The truth? No one really cares. Well, most people don't.
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I'm aware of that, I know not everybody is as stubborn as us, but there is always a way. If it's not a friend who you can reach out to, there are hotlines, that's why I added them to my message.
People who don't really care aren't your friends, they are just acquaintances. There is a French saying that goes this way, "you don't know who is your friend when everything is ok, they only stand out when things are bad", those who don't support you when things are bad but are there when you're ok simply aren't your friend.
There is a game called "Kind Words" where you can send a message anonymously and receive answers the same way. This game honestly gives me back faith in humanity every time I open it, there are people out there ready to be supportive and while it's extremely hard when you're in a bad place to notice them, they are there nonetheless.
I've been at the bottom of the hole more than once, I wouldn't see anything positive, I wouldn't see the hands trying to reach out to me or offering help. I made it out several times because they were there and I forced myself to reach out. Not everybody can do that, I'm also aware of that and not everybody has people they can trust with their life in such moment. Still, hotlines are there (which also can be chat on computer if you hate phone).
It's hard to see through the darkness, light is hard to find and comes a point you just want to give up. I posted that message for those who are at that point, I really wish those who find themselves there just try one of the number if they don't feel confident in finding help around them.
I'm not trying to invalidate your argument, you're right, not everybody cares and that's why you can count your friends with the fingers of a single hand (another French saying), if nobody around cares, the anonymous ones are there nonetheless. Don't let your light being consumed by your dark thoughts.
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thanks for the heads up, i'll keep that in mind. i'm sorry to hear what happened to your friend though.
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Im really sorry to hear that mate!
Respect and appreciation from me to you. You are a very good person...
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I was the earliest addition to their little group and he was speaking with the others more than he did with me as their friendship was decades old. I wasn't prying because I was explained that his way to cope was to be alone and coming back when he was ok, yet we all never failed to remind him that we were there for him. All his closer friends knew him IRL, he was friend with one since I think over two decades and they even met each other families.
When all that happened, he was mentally in a good place, he was easy enough to read so we would guess when he would disappear, this time felt odd to us because he was doing so good. After discussing about the things that got some of us considering the suicide as option, we realized that we had misunderstood things and due to his behavior the previous week, we're now confident when we say that he didn't commit suicide. I added the suspicion we had at some point as it was part of our process and I added the hotline in case someone needed it.
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You're welcome, I'm aware that I skipped a little over the suicide and named it three times in the discussion which can lead people to have this conclusion, especially as the reason we came to regarding his death is the last line before the TW ending and is coming after something really huge emotionally speaking so it can be overlooked as the mind is still trying to process what is under the spoiler part.
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Thank you. Thank you for loving and daring and putting yourself out there for your friend. I feel awful for what you and your friends went through, and am glad that you finally have some closure. Thank you for this message of both warning and encouragement--to be a better friend, to care, to take time from the busyness of our days to see those around us crying out for help or equally in need but too ashamed to ask.
May you be blessed with grace and peace from God.
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Thank you for your kind words. Posting this makes me vulnerable, I cried at every answer, cried at people who came to talk to me and over all, I'm a mess since last Friday. I knew that it would be like this, yet what else can I do to celebrate the life of my friend ? My friend deserves to be known for the great person he was, for the way he touched our life and the lesson he taught us to be always on the look out for someone who needs help and cannot always speak out.
He will be in my mind forever and if sharing this story can help one single person in the world, then it was the right thing to do. I won't ever doubt that speaking out, reaching out and sharing something that may be traumatic for me can be eye opening for others, can even avoid a similar situation for someone else.
It is the way I choose to see that experience, something difficult which can teach other a great lesson, those who are the best among us don't always know how to break their image and ask for support when they aren't at their best, and sometimes you don't realize how much people care about you.
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I don't get why his apartment was sealed but nobody discovered for more than a year that there was a dead person inside?
Or was this some different space?
Anyway, sad (and really well told) story and actually quite familiar in several regards. With better endings though.
And you are absolutely right with your advice, though it's a challenge to follow up on that. I actually have quite a lot in common with your friend, besides being German too. ;)
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It was indeed his apartment in which he was that was sealed and the reason why he wasn't found at that point is something that makes me angry to this day.
When an apartment is sealed, the people who are legally sent to seal it HAVE to check inside if there is something that may be left there like food that can rot, very hungry cat or in that case, the body of our friend which was visible right when opening the door. They didn't find the body because they didn't do their work, they sealed the apartment without even opening the door and I do hope that the landlord who sent them to seal said apartment called those people and that there were repercussions.
For the more personal side of your story, I invite you to contact me on Steam or in one of my giveaway if you feel safe enough and want to discuss about it with me. I'm only warning you about one thing, I'm French and English is only my second language, I may not be able to speak out the way I want and surely don't want to hurt you if I use the wrong word or sentence structure.
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We never were in contact with the people who sealed the apartment, we only knew it was sealed because one of his neighbor went to check his door and told us that it was sealed. I am not the one who received this information, I guess there was a message on the door stating that this apartment was sealed without any more information about it.
When I learned about his death, I was really angry about the policeman, I even thought he lied to me, but due to the dates, I realized he couldn't have known as well. I had him on call in August 2018 and his body was found in July 2019. When he had a look at his information he was officially alive, not living at the address we had (as the apartment was sealed) and there were no information about an incident which may have occurred and caused him to be in an hospital or in prison, there was just nothing. I have to add that because we were only friend and I wasn't even in the same country, he did something that was illegal when he gave me all those information, that's also why he told me he couldn't disclose the name of his parents and their address.
When I called that policeman, we stayed on phone for 30mn and at this point we only wanted to know if he was alive or not officially as we had no way to know that. The German police did its job by telling us that we weren't allowed to access those information, but the one I called at the embassy went out of his way to answer our questions and suggested that maybe he returned living with his family, which would be odd, but at the same time could be true as his health was bad and maybe he had no money left and needed to have help regarding his health problems.
It's been a year now so my anger cooled down and I had enough time to think of the timeline to see the fact as they are. The policeman was honest, he simply had no way to know an information that would be released a year later and couldn't do more. How would we have justified the fact we knew his parents personal information if we had called them ? We had no way to know this information on our own unless calling all the people living in Germany and having the same family name.
If he had disclosed the parents information, he would have involved himself into something that may even have caused him to lose his job as he wasn't supposed to even accept to check for someone who wasn't family or didn't have an official paper to request it.
When the policeman told us what he knew, it didn't give us false hope, he allowed us to resume our normal life. I thank him for having done that, I no longer spent a lot of times looking for information related to his name, I could stop thinking about it all the time wondering if he was suffering somewhere on his own. We all could set our mind at rest, and wait for more. And that's the best that could happened at that time.
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Don't apologize, I decided on my own to post a short version of the events which can definitely lead to confusion. This is my own fault and also the fact that I mixed the other cops who refused to help in the lot that caused you to misunderstood.
And I really was angry at him, I did think that he lied and it took me weeks to put my braincells in order and realize that he had no way to know and thus couldn't have lied to me.
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That's the sad thing when people merely "do their job". I get that not everyone will go out of their way to help others but there are people who really do go out of their way not to.
I know a few people in the police and I get that they see enough things to keep them up at night so they're not looking for others when they can avoid it. Still, if one of the people concerned here had done more than just what was required, slightly more, that would have changed things.
It might not have saved your friend, considering what you said about what might have happened, but it would have saved you and your friends months of worrying.
I'm really sorry for your loss. It seems odd to some how we can get attached to strangers we meet online, without knowing their real name ever, sometimes, or their face even, and they become a part of our daily life, and we come to cherish them. But it's real.
As sad as your story is, it still gives me hope, that there are people out there caring and going out of their way for others, even when we don't think there are.
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With the information we gathered, regarding his paiements and use of internet (yeah, we managed to get that information), we do know that he ceased all activity in December 2017, after saying goodnight. He stopped using Internet entirely, bills began to pill up that he didn't pay and his Internet and phone were then stopped I believe in February 2018 following the lack of answers on his side.
I believe nothing would have saved him, the reason why I'm fairly certain about that was that someone falling from their own height (and he was a gentle giant) is something that can easily kill you if unexpected and his health problems were related to his knees who somehow decided to take a break and be painful as heck, not allowing him to walk or even try to move them (so crawling wasn't an option).
For my own mental health, it's also better to think it that way rather than believing that he was there for days, so I'll continue to believe the information we found and the theory we have.
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That's really a scandal. And potentially risking lives and wellbeing of people.
Thanks for the offer but the similarities with your friend are mostly related to me going out of my way to support others, while I remain an independent (and in best case absolutely anonymous) figure myself. I think I haven't asked anyone for help since school.
And while there are things I struggle with, I have been doing great for at least the past three years. So nothing to worry about. For now. ;D
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I agree with you, the fact they didn't check is a scandal, thus my legitimate anger and wish to give them one punch for each day their behavior delayed the discovery of my friend's passing. That would be a lot of punches and I swear I would get a boxing coach first to make sure that each one of those would be as painful as possible.
I'm now reassured, I thought you were at the bottom of the hole and felt like you needed to isolate yourself due to the emphasis I put in the text. I'm glad you're another person proving that kindness still exist in this world.
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I think that your message is absolutely not off topic and it's a very interesting point of view. Maybe the fact you were trying to get help for a friend was the reason why you weren't received in an appropriate way, it may be because in the mind of those who spoke to you, you took the space of someone who needed their skill.
I would encourage you to call 911 and the authorities as well as the family of the person and those living close by if you are in a situation where you believe your friend(s) may be in danger to hurt themselves.
The other possibility I can see is you may have found yourself facing people who had a bad day, helpers can also be in a situation where they should help themselves first and it's not uncommon to have a weight on yourself when you spend your day dealing with such dire calls. I wouldn't discourage people to call the hotline, I could also encourage them to give a try to "Kind Words" (it's a Steam social platform where you can share your struggles anonymously and receive anonymous support from other users).
What I would do honestly depends of the person in question.
Once we faced a situation where someone left a message which could be read as a suicide note, this message was addressed to the community of the game we were playing and caused us to call the authorities to check on them, contact their close friends to call them directly and have other people to come at their home to check on them. Meanwhile we were waiting in the game, gathering together when waiting for the next events.
This night, the message spread really fast, people contacting their friend and this chain going on in hope to find someone who could go there or phone them. The person who wrote that message was down the hole at that moment, they thought nobody would actually care and having an ambulance, the cops and three people turning in to check on them came as a huge shock. They then later came back online in game to find us surrounding them, reassured that they were fine.
FFXIV community is unique and people care about each other so much that it lead to two events I will never forget as those happened in such surprising and unexpected way only for the sake of supporting others.
The first event was a vigil for a dying player. It began with one person standing in front of their Free Company House as their 29 years old friend and member of the FC was in the hospital, dying from the complications of a renal failure. During the whole day, the message was passed from people to people, causing the players to hold vigil in different servers and praying for that person. You can find some pictures of the vigil in the Kotaku article that was posted and there was a live stream going on.
All this reached the person in the hospital thanks to one of his friend showing him the live and what was going on, they saw all of us gathering and could witness how much we cared about him and his situation. I don't think anybody who paid their respect to him that day will ever forget about him, he's in our heart now.
The second event directly impacted me. I was asleep the evening of the Charlie Hebdo's shooting which was followed by two other in January 2015 in Paris. I woke up in the middle of the night and wanted to scroll on social while waiting for sleep to come back and I found myself in the middle of a very confusing situation, I had dozens of mails waiting for me, messages on social indicating that people were looking for me, asking if I was safe, if someone knew exactly where I was living, causing me to give up on sleeping to reassure all those people while STILL having no idea of what the heck was happening.
I logged in game, tried to manage the flood of messages coming my way and reassuring people who were afraid that I had been one of the victime. Most of the people who knew me were aware I was French but didn't know if I was living anywhere near the bombing. There is something eerie in a situation such as this one, where you find out that people you barely talked to are worried about your safety. I eventually joined the vigil hosted that day to pray for the victim, both to pray with them and reassure them about the fact I was safe.
That's second event and personal experience is one of the reason why I say that there is always someone thinking of you and you're not alone. Before that event, I had no idea that so many people cared for me, I had no idea that something happening in my country could cause people to relay the information in hope to find someone having a way to reach out to me that would be more effective than private messages and instant messengers.
Once more, we're never really alone, but those who look out for us may be unexpected. I will never doubt of that and it helped me every time I found myself down the hole. I know some people care, even if they met me only once, this is a very empowering feeling than to have experienced that. I won't ever forget and will fight for people to remind them that they are loved and cared for all my life. This energy is coming from those who supported me during that moment and so many others. I can't thank them enough for having me offered such a strength.
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I am glad that Fluffster answered to you so you have a better idea of what it is like on the other side of the fence.
I do believe that the reason you were on hold is that there were simply too many people calling at the same time and there isn't as many volunteers helping as there are people calling. The put on hold should be seen as "they are taking care of someone else" and not "they don't care about me / my friend".
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I volunteered for such a help line for several years. They needed native English speakers who could also take calls in French so I stuck around long after I had burned out. I always tried my best to help and most of all, listen, to the people at the end of the line but I know it's not always easy and I have seen way more than a few people just going by the scripts we were given "as a guide" and just feeling so mechanical, I doubt they provided any help or relief to anyone.
So it's mixed, as anything. I have always been a born listener and I'm genuinely interested in people, as were most of the volunteers I worked with. Others though came with big ideas or were just trying to garnish their resume with something that made them look good and didn't require much, or so they thought, because it's just talking on the phone, right?
There are also lines that are "manned" by people on the job, and they can be very jaded. They are getting paid no matter how the person on the other end feels.
I guess it all comes down to who answers the phone on that particular time. Still, I think it does good. As can some forums and online discussions provided no troll wanders in. Like anything people-related, it's user sensitive.
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I just felt like I wasn't helping as much as I used to because it can be very emotionally draining and you need to be emotionally strong to help others the best.
I have volunteered for other organizations since then, maybe more focused on physical support because I haven't felt emotionally stable enough to go back to the help lines. I think I may at some point but while keeping a better eye on my reserves as well.
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"Help yourself before helping others" is an important idiom because the burn out is real and I think the best image you can find regarding this hard work is the drowning.
People who are drowning and in need of a hand are requesting the help, but if the person who take their hand are tired, they may drown with them. You need to be in proper mental and physical condition to plunge under water to take the hand of someone and pull them to the surface, if you're not strong enough, you may need to release the hand to save yourself or may be unable to plunge at all.
Your mental and physical health comes before helping others in their own situation, it's something that you have to do no matter what. If you believe that you cannot help someone yourself without drowning and damaging your own safety, you HAVE to give the hand to someone else.
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Just before reading your post I was thinking about a video I saw about a person working at a suicide hotline. She spoke so soft and delicate, it was almost ASMR. It was very powerful stuff. (edit: found it - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBcOSo6A__k )
Nothing but admiration for people that can handle that kind of job and be good at it.
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Now I want to watch that documentary.
Yeah that lady is definitely a pro. Volunteer-based helplines barely get training (even though there are a few psychologists assisting to prevent things from going sideways) but wow it's great to see people who are properly trained, and willing, do it well.
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Aw man, I'm so sorry. Losing friends is always rough, regardless of how you end up losing them. Someone I knew years ago who also vanished on me (except I have no further information at all) is still on my mind occasionally. It's weird how that works sometimes. The mind is a fascinating little thing.
Anyway, I applaud your persistence and just general solicitude I think is the word. I feel like not many people care about their fellow humans anymore these days, especially online, so it's good to hear differently, even if it's in really sad circumstances.
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I don't think that there are so little people who care, even you continue to think of that friend from time to time and I went through other people disappearing without knowing what happened to them. You cannot always do something, what allowed us to go further was the fact we had some IRL contacts and we could narrow down the information until getting where he really was, but that's not always what happens, in fact it's pretty rare that things are going that way.
In that answer I explain how people who only knew me as a French person reached out after Charlie Hebdo's shooting. They had no idea where I was living and that's why they were so worried and trying to reach out to me or someone else who knew me. In a situation such as this one, I could have vanished the same way and maybe be in the mind of a few people once in a while, like you and your friend.
I came back feeling really different after this experience. At the time, I was really down and thought that I didn't matter. Those people proved me the contrary, I mattered so much that they were worried for me for hours and going out of their way to find me, a stranger on internet, someone they only talked to once in a while or just read the post on social media. I know I'm repeating myself, but you're never fully alone.
I know there are few people who will go through the experience I had, and frankly I don't wish it to anybody because that would mean that a catastrophe similar to 9/11 or Charlie Hebdo's shooting is happening. But I won't ever believe that I'm alone.
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I'm really saddened to read this story - all I can offer are my condolences.
Technology has a tremendous ability to make us all more human - it allows us to connect with one another in ways we otherwise couldn't.
I used to be heavily involved in mmo's as well - the relationships we form playing them is definitely one of the reasons that keep us playing them. Eventually I moved on from that kind of gaming, as some of us (mostly me) went onto different priorities/interests. But I never forget the close ties I had with friends I've made online - and I sometimes reminisce about those memories.
Once again, I'm sorry to hear about what happened.
I'd just like to say, though, that I'm glad to read about how much you and your friends cared about B - I can tell how much of a great friend you are - I can only hope to meet someone like you one day as well.
All the best.
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I do believe in chances. I don't believe in destinies and all the stuff like that, but I believe in the idea that circumstances and situations are giving you a chance for something to happen. It works with pretty much everything.
For example, a month ago, after we applied for marriage and got married by mistake for 15mn (story time here if you want a good laugh), we met someone as we were going back home as we were discussing about the way COVID was changing the life of a lot of people. She was coming back home from having worked, she told us she was a cook and we discussed about her situation, her work and so on. As we had to leave the tram, we asked her where she worked. Now I know where I can finally have a good couscous and it's thanks to that chance we took.
Events happen all the time, you're given the choice to do something or to not and sometimes it can lead to the best friendships while you had no idea that speaking about pastry with this random person would lead you to meet someone you'll call your friend today.
I met G, my best friend, my platonic soulmate, in a very unique while random situation and I wouldn't be there without her, one day I may share that story and why, to me, she's the one to thank for everything.
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I don't even know what to say, I'm out of words :( I'm sorry, losing someone is never good or easy. You're a good friend, thank you ❤️
I know most people as you said think they are a burden or they fear (or lots of other reasons really), that's the main reason they stop communicating and simply just vanish :(
Sadly I'm guilty of that ^^" I don't know, It's just... hard, I guess. But It's better to talk to someone eventually, sometimes we can't help ourselves, sometimes, we cannot go through life alone, we need to either help other people or allow other people to help us. I guess the first step is just accepting some things, you are not a burden, you are not alone, some people care about you and you are loved.
Thanks again ❤️
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The idea of being a burden and thinking that if the person didn't reach out is because they don't want to talk to you is a vicious circle which is hard to break.
The problem with that idea is the more time passes, the harder it is to go and speak to that person, because days, weeks, months, years without a word emphasized the fact that they didn't talk, so maybe you were a burden to them all along.
What you forget is 1. everybody is busy and have memory holes, 2. there is a high chance they are in the same situation as you, believing that the reason why you're not saying hello is because they were a burden yadi yadi yada.
I'm going to say something that will sound terribly stupid, but that's how I broke the cycle with some people with whom I grew apart over time (that happens, don't feel guilty). I usually take my notepad or whatever and I write simple sentences like, "hey, it's been a while, how are you doing ? You had this project, is it still going on ?" or it happens that you find something that make you think of someone and linking those thing to them saying "hey, I remember you love that, see what I found ! How are you doing btw," the latter being honestly more my take, even though it's sometimes a little complicated.
So why the notepad ? That's because I'm a coward and sometimes I need a bit of confidence to post something and if I write the text directly in the chat, I keep deleting for some reasons, while writing on WordPad, I just keep it open, I see the icon there, I'm reminded that I wrote something for someone but it's not as scary and threatening as having that feeling to need to wait for an answer, it's just there and I eventually send the message after building up some courage, and when everything is already written it's easier to do a copy / past / send than writing everything while your courage slowly wind down.
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I'm sorry for your loss.
This is truly a sad story, and I hope it can be a reminder for us all to cherish our friends - we never know when they'll be taken away from us.
I am gonna turn around here and tell you, Khayta, if you need someone to talk to, feel free to message me or anyone else who's offered. It's better to be sad with other people, rather than being sad all alone.
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I'm sorry to hear about what happened to your friend. It is nice to see there are good people in the world like your group of friends who treated him well prior to his disappearance and were very concerned about what happened to him.
Hopefully your post may help someone in the future if they are feeling down whether they have friends or not.
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Thanks for sharing (and caring).
I'm a person that can go "missing" too.
I know it is not a good thing, and I don't want to do it, but I can't stop myself.
When I have been "off-grid" for a few days I feel embarrassed about it, and that embarrassment makes me stay away longer...perpetuating the situation. It is a difficult cycle to break. After a few weeks or sometimes months the guilt becomes too much and I reach out.
I'm not depressed, it's not about that for me, it's just awkwardness and embarrassment.
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You're not the only one like that and I wrote how I break the cycle myself when it happens to me in another comment.
Something I also keep saying and doing with people, which is really me, I tell them that time in between can be 1 month or 3 years, I'll just answer the same way as we spoke yesterday. I'm just like that, I don't consider time being a factor in friendship, I'm still friend with people I didn't speak to since months, I don't forget about them, life and the current world situation has us behaving differently than usual, I don't blame people for not speaking to me the same way they don't blame me for not speaking to them and also behave like we spoke the day before, it's helping a lot to have that sort of thought (but that's just for me though ?).
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Sad story, sorry what happened. Was probably not easy to relive it again and write about it. I think you did everything you could. Thanks for sharing
Not even close on the same scale, but reminded me of a friend i lost during my university studies (10 years ago). He mostly kept to himself and was not very open. But he was always there. One day he suddenly did not show up and did not respond to messages and calls. After 2 days we reached out to his roommate, who was currently away on vacation. We asked if he could come back early and check on him. He did. He found him in his room. Diagnosis was sudden death by influenca. He was 23.
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Speaking about him is liberating. It's helping me to peel the pain off my heart, slowly and surely. Life will never exactly be the same, I miss him every single day and I'm sure you get what I'm saying due to the fact you went through something similar. Yet, I can choose to cry sadly about the circumstances or deciding to share his story and how we crossed path, how much we cared and how much we loved him and will never stop loving him.
I want to remember him for the time we were together and not for the time he wasn't there and we were worried. Writing this is another step in this direction I want to take. I want to smile happily when thinking of him, I want to tell myself that those events, as tragic as they can be, give a light of hope to those who read it and remind us to check on our loved one and that we can reach out as to others when we are in pain.
B was an amazing person, I am very grateful to have met him and in the end, my saddest thought is you'll never have this chance.
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I've been asked why I called that discussion that way, as in the end it's not exactly about speaking out right ?
Fact is that he wasn't, he would just disappear when he wasn't doing ok, and over time, it became something usual for us to see him come and go. The issue with that is maybe we could have acted faster and called the police for a check up, which we couldn't do after several months.
Fact is those voices are really powerful and they become a cycle, every element proving you right reinforce them and makes you more and more deaf to the people who are trying to help you. It's also hard to not bite the hand if you are proven right over and over again, it's a vicious cycle and it's hard to break.
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Let me understand. So, in august 2018 policeman from the French Embassy lied to you that your friend is alive and living with his familly, but he died in december 2017? Am I right or am I missing something?
"So I called the French Embassy, I pushed for several weeks to have a call conference with the ambassador or whoever would hear me out. I called a bit too late one evening and the policeman who answered to me actually listened all the story, we were already in August 2018"
"Our friend died at some point between the night of December 17th and 18th 2017, but his body was found over a year and a half later, he was only in his forty."
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I'll make it more clear, because that's indeed something that was misunderstood by someone else and that's my fault for not making a timeline, you can read my other answer about the events.
He disappeared December 17th 2017.
During the course of 2018, we tried to find a way to reach him, learned that his apartment was legally sealed and the last of this was the policeman telling me that there was nothing specific about him in the files in August 2018 : He wasn't at the address we had since the apartment was sealed, there was no accident recorded, he was officially alive and well. He suggested that maybe he returned living with family and that maybe he didn't want to speak about his situation right now, which would have been fairly logical.
Comes July 2nd 2019, the apartment was opened by people who were hired to clean it, and they found the body of my friend, in his apartment.
He should have been found when the apartment was sealed as they HAVE to check inside in case there is something dangerous in there, you never know and it's the way it HAS to be done. But they didn't open the door, or the body of our friend would have been found months before it was.
I'm going to quote myself from the message I linked above so you don't have to read the whole post :
When the policeman told us what he knew, it didn't give us false hope, he allowed us to resume our normal life. I thank him for having done that, I no longer spent a lot of times looking for information related to his name, I could stop thinking about it all the time wondering if he was suffering somewhere on his own. We all could set our mind at rest, and wait for more. And that's the best that could happened at that time.
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Thank u for sharing such a heartfelt story about B. It must have be difficult telling us about your time together but also maybe lightened your heart a bit sharing it with us. I wish the outcome would have been a happy one! My condolences for your loss! U were a caring friend that did everything u could to find out what happened.
Here is what happened to me. I got on Google+ a few months after it started. I found someone that posted alot of "feel good" messages and things like that. I commented daily on hundreds of things she posted. Her posts were very popular and she had a large following. After awhile i stopped going on there and spent my time gaming. I got emails that she commented on several of her posts and mine asking if i was alright since i hadn't been there commenting as usual. Other people commented about my absence as well. I broke down in tears knowing people i met online cared and was concerned about me. I was at a low spot in my life then. U never know how much u effect someone's life. After that when i was gaming alot i would go back and post that i'm alright and send well wishes to everyone.
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Thank you for sharing your story, it's honestly wonderful. I explained my own experience in another post and it's honestly empowering to see that people care, even if you never directly spoke to them, you don't see things the same way once it happened and you realize that.
A lot of people think that Internet isolate us more and more as we forget that there is a world outside or even around us as we're using our phone, it's both true and not at the same time. Those who were isolated will find themselves meeting other people, even more if they have a hobby which isn't that common or they believe it to be that way, only to realize that there is someone living two streets away who shares the same interest.
There is good and bad when it comes to Internet, like pretty much everything, you learn over time how to take the good, close out the bad and for some to feel more accepted and not as alone as they were. I'm very glad you had that experience, this is amazing, thanks again for sharing.
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So sorry about your friend. I really wish that the people around him hadn't been so careless as to seal his apartment. How did his landlord just never open the door? If you miss one month's rent in the US your landlord comes banging on your door asking for it and are legally allowed to enter if they give 1-2 weeks notice. That can be a terrible thing for those struggling with money or people who want privacy but how on earth could he just be left there for a year in a rented space? It is a very disheartening story but you should be proud of how you handled it. You were one of the only people trying to give him dignity in death and that is important.
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The way it works depends on the area, in France for example, it's not allowed to kick someone from their apartment during winter months ± 1 or 2 months from memory (I would need to check exactly) because it's cold and that's how it works here. It is also illegal to have a key of your tenant apartment and I honestly believe that those rules are pretty fair.
In my friend's situation, we don't know where lives the landlord, maybe they lived in another town, maybe they bang at his door, we cannot know. Since B disappeared in December which would be during those months you cannot kick your tenant if they have a similar rule as in France (which is highly possible), the landlord probably sent letters, until able to call the authority to get the person out if they were still in and seal the apartment so the tenant wouldn't be able to get in.
The reason why you have to call the authority is also because you don't have a key to the rented place, so there has to be someone hired to open that door and check inside would there would be no answer coming or would the tenant not open.
The authority didn't do their job, they didn't check inside, that's the real issue here, the landlord did what they had to do in this case, it's absolutely not their fault.
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That is interesting how that is handled. It sounds like the French system is better for tenants but failed this time. Again, I'm very sorry for your loss
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B was German so I'm not exactly sure of the specifics, we don't know the landlord and we had no idea where to start to find them. They could have owned only this apartment, of the building and we didn't want to intrude into the neighbor's privacy regarding that matter.
There are differences between countries on how things are handled as the weather isn't the same, the consideration of people, social helps involved, etc. Another thing we don't even have to ask in France is about pets. Cats, dogs and normal pets are allowed in rented apartments or houses, a landlord could say no to someone having cats for example, but they better give another reason are unless we're speaking of exotic animals, a landlord have to accept pets.
There is that one thing about winter, during those months you can also discuss for bonus help to go through the winter, we also have a system allowing the rent to be paid no matter what happen and you have to give back the money little by little with 0% fee. They also cannot shut your electricity during winter for similar reasons.
There are protections both for landlords and tenants, so in case of problem, the first is paid and the second can figure a way to get out of their financial troubles.
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You're a good friend. Sometimes I feel completely alone, but you got me thinking that maybe there are people out there that care about my wellbeing. I can relate to feeling like a burden during my bad times. I talk a lot to friends online during good times, but during bad times I just kind of disappear because I don't want to be a burden. I have joined support groups, though, and I talk to them. I also love the game Kind Words you mentioned. Thank you for sharing this.
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Not everybody has the same way to deal with problems and difficult periods. If you don't mind, I would like to ask you a favor. If you have to leave for some time, because it's how you cope and you need to have some lone time, find someone you trust and tell them every time "hey I need some lone time, I'm ok, I'll just do stuff on my own for a few weeks and be back". It's for your safety and so you can remember that some people will be waiting for you.
You're not alone, there is always someone who cares, you'll be in my mind from now on as well.
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Out of respect for the memory of my friend whom I'm going to speak about, please refrain to come and troll that topic or ask about any unrelated thing. If you want to speak with me about something unrelated, use one of my giveaways or put a message on my Steam Profile and I'll do my best to get back to you.
For those who know me a little more out of SG, you may have heard that I'm mostly a MMORPG player who can stay years without needing to touch a single other game than the MMO I'm currently playing for literally years.
I'm currently taking a break from FFXIV and the story I'm going to share is one of the thing that caused me to have a breakdown, I want to share it with you to raise awareness about solitude, mental and physical health and that idea we have that we should keep things to ourselves to not burden others.
Trigger warning : The story I'm going to share involves mental distress, physical health and death. If you believe that you aren't in a state allowing you to handle the story, please skip the TW part which I'll be properly tagging and read what comes after. Your wellbeing is important, do not push yourself to read
I'm a MMO player since 2004/2005 or so, I met all sort of people, good and bad and always ended up to form my own Clan, Guild, Free Company as having a way to enjoy the game which doesn't always correspond to how most of players engage the content of video games.
FFXIV was no exception, I tried to test some other FC but eventually made my own which could be considered as a place for those having gone through something and needing to mend their broken wings before going and flying again, maybe with us, maybe elsewhere. We have seen people coming and going and eventually the core of our little FC became really close as we would include friends and family to it, meeting IRL and so on.
Things went pretty well for years, we had highs and lows but the story I'm going to share shook me to my core, it isn't something anybody did to me and believe me, I went through a lot as a woman playing MMO since so long, it is something that happened that got us all desperate as we were powerless and couldn't do anything.
About B
B was an amazing member of our little community, he came along with my best friend whom convinced some of her close friends to come and try the game, leading this little group of 4 people who knew each others since decades to be part of my daily life. I honestly love each one of them and I'm very happy to be able to count them as my friends
B was someone who was going in and out of the game, playing other things aside, and while he was the most supporting person in the world, when he was himself at the bottom of the hole, he would disappear for months on end. I cannot say why exactly, I know he was ashamed and didn't want to be a burden to others, but I'm unaware of what caused him to even think this way. He was there for us and we were here for him too, but taking the hand we were extending to him was simply not always possible to him.
[Trigger warning : ON]
At some point he disappeared again and when he came back, he told us he had been stuck in his bed due to a pain so high in his leg that he couldn't even go up to the kitchen to take his phone. He was found miraculously by his boss who was wondering why he didn't come to work, after a little more than a week and was sent in emergency to the hospital.
As I was the latest addition to that small group of friends, I didn't dare to ask about his health problems, what is sure is we asked him to have his phone with him at all time and to call any of us in case of emergency, as his close friends were living in the same country they would be able to call for an ambulance so on and so forth.
Months passed and he was super chirpy super happy. December 17th 2017, he was taking care of his crafting classes, having fun with them and he gifted a few people the armchair mount that was released a few days ago before wishing us "good night, see you tomorrow," as he did every days since week.
I'm sure you're guessing that he never came back and you would be correct.
This time was odd to us, mostly because he was opening to others when he wasn't doing right and honestly you could sense it in his way of speaking, also he was really into his character, active on Tumblr and with a group of people playing the same race (Roegadyn in case you're curious) and as far as I'm aware they had stuff planned. When he wasn't ok he would simply ceased to be social, not going into the TS he shared with his friends since over a decade but you could generally see some activities, like him logging on Steam and playing. Here we had absolutely nothing, he just vanished.
Over time we shared our concerns and if you know me a little, you may know I can be opinionated, stubborn and this can lead me to not the best version of myself. After worrying like we did and some events that continued to happen showing us that he wasn't even paying his bills, I had a discussion with his decades friend and pushed them into investigating what may be happening. I know this caused one of them to be very stressed and I apologized for it afterwards, I should have been more tactful, I had reached that one point where my own stress regarding the unfolding events caused me to want an answer and I sure should have engaged this discussion in a different way.
At this point none of our possible answers about his disappearance were positive, we had 3 options and they were all shitty : hospital (maybe mental care ?), homelessness or death (maybe even suicide). If it was option one or two, we wanted to help and offer as much support we could, if it was option three, we would have a closure even if it would be so hard to deal with.
I won't tell your everything we did, we began with his social media, his Facebook and his name, we trailed him to his town, narrowed to his street and building thanks to some help. It took months until we got all the information leading us to find the phone numbers of a few of his neighbors. I'm French, he was German, I can only speak English, so just picture a crying mess trying to speak to those neighbors asking them if they saw him, if they could knock at his door, etc. Luckily one of them was speaking French and after I called and explained to my best friend that this person answered and told me a few things, she decided to called that person again to explain better in German and have them checking the name on the mail box and a few more requests that I had been unable to convey as I had some difficulties to convey what we wanted to know to that neighbor whose French wasn't perfect and wasn't speaking in English.
Of course this lead to a dead end, the apartment was sealed (I'm unsure what it means but that was clearly different than just him not being there and the door simply being locked), nobody was living there since months and he had no idea when was the last time he saw our friend. We didn't know where he was working at the time, the only thing we knew is he was in vacations at the time he disappeared.
We were stuck because we weren't members of his family, we couldn't ask for him in the hospitals around or ask the cops if he was ok and alive. We did give it a try and they dismissed it as "if your friend decided to go you shouldn't try to force them to speak to you" which is absolutely true but didn't answer to that dreading feeling we had since months.
So I called the French Embassy, I pushed for several weeks to have a call conference with the ambassador or whoever would hear me out. I called a bit too late one evening and the policeman who answered to me actually listened all the story, we were already in August 2018, I told him everything and because of that he answered he would help as we were all worried enough to went through all those events and he wanted to offer us closure if it was possible. He only needed a bit of time to have an access to the tools he needed to help and not to be guarding the place for the night, but he DID call me back.
He told me that he couldn't disclose where he was living exactly, but that he was alive, not in an hospital and maybe living back with family.
I shared the information with the others and we decided that we had to stop there. If he wanted to come back, he would, we had some answers, not the one expected, we had to accept things as they were and move on.
We continued to wish him a happy birthday, leaving little messages to him, adding him to our little conversations in case he could read or come back, until May 18th 2020.
My best friend checked randomly his Facebook and found a message that had been posted minute after she wished him a happy birthday, a friend announcing that he died and joining the picture of a newspaper RIP section with his day of death noted as July 2nd 2019.
I'm going to spoil the next part, read at your discretion.
My best friend reached out to the woman who posted the newspaper cut and asked her what happened, she told him that the date was fake, she explained that his body had been found in his apartment at that date by the people who were hired to clean the apartment for it to be rented again. She thanked the woman and didn't tell her what we knew regarding the time of his death as this was already heavy on her mind.
Our friend died at some point between the night of December 17th and 18th 2017, but his body was found over a year and a half later, he was only in his forty.
His family never tried to find him and is unlikely to know that he even died, they never reached out to the woman who announced their son's death and he had cut ties with them years prior his death.
What happened is weighing on me every day since a year. I had never forgotten about him, I was constantly reminded of his absence by all the little events and items he had left behind him. Yet we couldn't have guessed, we couldn't have known what really happened and we will never know the exact details. Because of some specific things he did, we also know that he didn't commit suicide, our best guess is his leg problem may have came back and he fell from his height as he was walking to his kitchen.
[Trigger warning : OFF]
B was always ashamed when he was sick or had a problem and wouldn't contact anybody, withdrawing entirely until the problem was solved. He believed he was a burden. That's the reason why I'm sharing this story today.
If anything happens to you, don't be ashamed to reach out and seek help. Don't just vanish. Even if you're sick or in a situation that had your fall down in a deep hole, even if you're in the deepest depression. Tell your friends.
You never know what you leave behind you, you may believe that you will be forgotten after a week or two, but it's simply not true. We searched for him for months to get all the information we had, we never forgot and kept an eye on his social media, just in case.
A friend doesn't forget, a friend simply waits for you to break the silence, ready to accept pretty much anything. Speak to your friends, they are ready to listen.
We waited for years, we did everything we could not to have a closure, but to help if he was in a dire situation. In the end, all of this pushed me to try and be kinder, to reach out to people and ask them if they are ok, to spend the necessary time to listen to people when they would reach out and always reminding people who couldn't speak that I was here to listen whenever they would need or would be ready to speak.
Communication is difficult and in many cultures mental and chronic health issues are considered as something you should keep quiet about. If you believe that you cannot speak of your struggles to close people, reach out to a hotline where you can anonymously speak and receive the help you deserve.
Here are a few hotline websites and numbers you can call if you need support :
I decided to share his story because a lot of people are like him, afraid of burdening their friends regarding an issue, especially if it's something that happens chronically. I want you to know that you are loved and that you may be unaware of the impact you have on other people's life. You may feel like you're alone and that nobody cares, but it's unlikely the case. What you have to do if you are down the hole, no matter the reason, is reach to out, even if it's by using a hotline, someone will listen to you.
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