re: Do you have a life event or regret you just can't get over? (long)

I'm sorry to hear about this entire situation. I've got no real experience worth comparing. Even if you feel counseling isn't helping/doesn't help, I wouldn't personally discontinue it. This is not the kind of mental anguish that you're going to walk away from in a day's, week's month's, or year's time. But you have to stop and put everything into perspective.

It sounds like the guy thought a lot of you to feel comfortable calling you in the wee hours for a ride. That's a level of friendship that a surprisingly small number of people come across. Celebrate it. You did your best to help a friend out of a jam. Your decision was not a poor one. If you could have known the future, you would have acted differently. But that would have been impossible to know at the time. And I would wager that very few people would have acted differently than you. And had they acted differently (by not picking him up), who knows what would have happened? Sure, he may have made it home somehow or another. But maybe he would have driven and wound up right where he is anyway. Or in prison. Or in a wreck that hurt someone else. It's impossible to know. All things considered, it would be hard for anyone to say that you have done anything wrong.


Now, what can you do? I would reach out to his family if you haven't. Let them know how much you love him and never meant any harm. Reach out to another friend, coworker, member of a faith organization (if you are part of one, you've got a lot better support system than if you don't. Clergy are fantastic people to turn to in these sorts of situations, should that be of interest to you).

In terms of my attempt to share something, I was in a fairly dark place for a while. I didn't really know what getting up each morning was for. I was lost. I don't really think I even wanted to stick around to figure out my way. I didn't enjoy things I once did. I spent more nights than not drinking in my room after my roommates had gone to bed. But one day when I had no where in particular to go, which were particularly difficult days for me to really feel like even rolling out of bed, I noticed the sun rising through my blinds. And I thought about it for a while. And I took a deep breath in. I came to the realization that there couldn't be a better thing in the world than the sun rising and me still being around to see it. It took me much, much longer than those few moments to figure anything else about me out or why I was even around, but I knew that each day that came was one day closer to finding out what it was. You can't get to a better part of life without going through today, so be damn thankful that you saw today, no matter how good, bad, or neutral it may have been. It's probably stupid. And it's definitely simple. But it gets me through each day.