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lynn09 · Jul 05, 2012, 03:59 AM

Hello, Stanley. So sorry for the losses you have suffered and that you are feeling so abandoned and alone right now. First and foremost, if you feel that doing yourself harm is probable, please call your primary care physician, psychiatrist, and/or therapist right away and let them know, then call 911. This way your caregivers can advocate for you if you have to go to the hospital which may make for a better experience. The most important thing is for you to stay safe and receive the support you need during this trying and painful period.

That being said, the best thing you can do at this point is try to shift your perspective - look at your situation from a different point of view - a different mindset. Each of us determines what meanings we assign to various events in our lives, and each of us has the power to choose whether the values we assign to them are positive or negative. For most of us abuse survivors, shifting our perspectives to the positive is difficult because there has been SO much negative in our lives; however, this is precisely what we must learn to do in order not only to survive, but to be able to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives.

You have had 3 wonderful, loving friends (the "family" we choose for ourselves) who loved and genuinely cared about you, and helped you learn to value yourself - and that is something that all too many abuse survivors never experience in their lives. It is absolutely heart-wrenching that you have had to suffer the pain of such tremendous loss which I know is magnified all the more by the loss of your childhood due to abuse. Nevertheless, the death of loved ones is part of this mortal life; but it is how we choose to value and use such experiences that either makes or breaks us. This is where that shift in perspective comes in.

Although it is absolutely necessary for us to grieve such losses, focusing solely on what we have lost keeps us bound to mourning and death. At some point, those of us who are left behind must honor life by returning to it and fully participating in it. Your friends' lives were about more than than their passing. You could make July 7th each year the day that you commemorate and celebrate your friends' lives - a time to be thankful that you had such loving people in your life who taught you what it means to be loving and loved. You could make that July 7th anniversary the day that you remind yourself that your friends passed the torch to you for you to carry and pass on for them.

Because of your relationships with your friends, you are equipped with compassion, empathy, knowledge, and wisdom that you would not have otherwise, and which you now can share with others just as your friends shared with you. There are so many who are suffering - feeling abandoned and alone - so many who have never experienced what you have. Your loving friends gave you such a precious gift freely and unconditionally - a gift of love and healing that you now can pass on to the family you will create for yourself through all the years of your life - their and your legacy that will live on and on long after you are gone.

With each and every thought, attitude, word, and action, we bring our positive or negative wills and intentions into a state of being in this physical realm helping to create the world in which we all must live. I hope you will try to find a way to honor the lives of your friends by sharing your gift; by doing so, you will make the world a little better place for others who are suffering.

I hope you are feeling better soon. lynn09