Well you shouldn’t feel terrible. People deal with death and grief in a lot of different ways. If this gives you some sort of closure then it’s a good thing.

Spoilering this just because it's a rambling mess.

Spoiler

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No one died so this is slightly less depressing than my usual posts in here. After much painful deliberation I have come to the decision to surgically remove my best friend and his monster of a girlfriend from my life. They're toxic, and they've expedited a spiral for me as well. So as documented, for a long time I had quite the problem with drug use. I eventually got it under control and was sober for... I can't even remember the final count at this point, but it was like 4 or 5 years. A considerable amount of time. During that time I became kind of distant with my best friend since childhood. We still talked but I did not go over and see him because he was always partying. Anyway, fast forward to... two? Three years ago? I decide it's been long enough, I've got everything under control. I can go be around things without feeling the need to join in. Plus I missed my friend. So I returned. And for about a year everything was great. They weren't bashful about drug use in front of me (rude looking back) but I held strong. Then cracks started forming in my resolve. I would be over there, but I would be obsessively texting or messaging someone the whole time I was there to distract me. Sorry Maddie. And then eventually it happened, because of course it did. I gave in, relapsed. Piece of shit. Failure. Did I not learn my lesson? I thought I had. But whatever, if I got to five years once I can do it again. But it's been hard because I've been trying to juggle still having them in my life since they had their baby. But I won't do it anymore. My best friend of 30 years baby mama stole money from me. I confronted her about it in private and she cried and apologized and said she would pay me back. I waited a week and heard nothing. So I confronted her again, in front of him. To my absolute surprise, he had no reaction to it at all. Complacent, probably complicit in it. I told them to have a good night and walked out of their house. I have not gone back. That was two months ago. I've been waiting for an apology, repayment. Nothing. The other day - a text. A wall of text berating me for not being a good friend to my friend from his baby mama. She had the gall to actually try to turn it around on me. No apology to be found. I silently fumed and did not reply. Today, a nice passive aggressive post on Facebook about friends never helping them out. Reminder that I unfortunately introduced these two people to Brian and Maddie here on a trip that I paid for entirely (gas, concert, hotel) aside from their food. I've given both of them rides to work a hundred times in 2019. I've picked him up from work just as many times. They've both wrecked their cars multiple times and I'm the first person they call. I'm the person they call when they snort too much of his paycheck and their fuckin' government assistance because they know I won't let them go through the weekend without eating. But they are the ones that are always helping everyone. Yes. I know this doesn't mean anything to anyone here, and I'm just rambling about personal shit but I honestly have NEVER felt so used, discarded and just disrespected. I'm a disposable friend because I dared to request that money stolen from me be returned.

Love you z


Never hesitate to call me if you need anything. Addiction is a dark dark path of destruction. Never feel like you can’t cry for help. <3



And not talking to your ex friends is the first step.

SNIP SNIP

Zersch I think you posted this in the wrong thread, this is good news. These people do not sound like real friends and it's good that you are cutting them out of your life.

The shit they're posting on facebook is probably their attempt to rationalize their shitty behaviour.

Fuck them. Never talk to them again. They don't deserve you.

Tough love, Zersch. I love you.

It can be pretty difficult to annex toxic people who are very deeply ingrained in your life. It takes a tremendous amount of resolve to cut loose like that.

I agree that it's a positive thing, not bad news at all. The beaviour you've described sounds like elements of narcissism to me, and I've witnessed plenty of people get caught up in those spirals and the destructive force it can cause.

Well done for making a good call on this.

All of you are glorious and treasured. Not just here, but everywhere.

Damn, Zersch. That is a horribly tough situation for you. I know you want to be there for your friends and help them, but taking care of yourself takes priority. Don't let them get to you. One day, hopefully, they'll come to terms with their own issues and realize that they were bad friends to you.

You have to change the people, places, and things in your life if you want to give yourself a chance. Cut them out for you.

My sister is putting her dog down today. :(

Roxy led a long beautiful life.

So my dad died.

I've been intermittently processing this for the past 2-3 weeks (I've somewhat lost track of the days to be honest, it all gets a bit blurry).

I'm not sure how much of the details I put out here, but he was diagnosed with prostate cancer about 4 years ago. I think I mentioned this because I was in the process of running Lab 4 when it happened, and quite frankly the severity of it killed my ability to host that game at the time, shutting it down because I couldn't focus at all.

They gave a pretty grim diagnosis at the time, essentially telling us that it was very highly progressed and he wouldn't see out the year. My dad being who he was, he was the sort of person to carry on regardless of the weather and finish the work he had to do. So he did that. And he successfully beat that diagnosis and cancer.

Despite pulling through that he had side effects from the treatment. He developed anemia and went through a phase where his iron count was so low he basically had no energy at all and no immunity to anything. My dad being who he was, he didn't let that stop him either. He recovered from that and got some semblance of life back. He wasn't quite the same as before, but he was determined to carry on and make the best of it.

Unfortunately in the various processes of treatment they identified another problem, he had an as yet to be undiscovered and extremely rare genetic condition in which the white blood cells in is body would cause damage to his lungs when fighting off infection. I'm not sure if this was triggered by the treatment for cancer but I'd imagine that, and the other subsequent health problems didn't help much.

We kind of made our peace with it and just naturally accepted he would always be in some state of ill health. But a few weeks ago he had a bout of what seemed like "flu" and spent a day in bed before waking up in the early hours unable to breathe and having to be rushed off to hospital.

Unfortunately, despite best efforts at this point the recent bout of what we would later discover to be pneumonia had utterly destroyed his lungs. He died around midday the next day. We were able to be with him in his final moments, although he wasn't conscious since being taken in.

It's been a bit of a roller coaster. I decided to go back to work a week after to get some sense of normality/routine into my life. But I've still been coming home to the same empty feeling and I don't think that's likely to go away anytime soon. We have the funeral coming up this week, which will at least give us some closure.

The only positive take-away from this is that in essence, he cheated death twice and we had much, much longer with him than we expected given the original diagnosis all the way back then.

I'm not really sure how active this forum is anymore. I still pay for the ndim server and Curt assures me that people still use it but I haven't been on in a while so I don't really know if anybody will read this. But considering I cancelled one of my flagship games over my father's health issues and I've posted about it here in the past it was worth a conclusive post. I am okay, I guess. I lost my brother 4 years ago so grief is becoming an all too familiar beast in my day to day.

Please everybody, just take a moment to let those closest to you know you love them. Spend time with them. Put your feuds and differences aside. This stuff happens like a flash and you're never truly ready. Even being somewhat aware of my dad's ongoing health problems I didn't spend as much time in the month before visiting or talking to him. Don't waste any precious moments. Make everything count.

Sorry for your loss Porl. I’m glad he was able to overcome a lot and spend more time with you than was expected. Life is precious and short indeed.

Sorry Von :(

Sorry for your loss man, that sucks :(