Crazy but true

A friend of mine was unceremoniously dumped by his live-in boyfriend about four months ago. The reason being was that the boyfriend was constantly sure of the “fact” that my friend was cheating on him, which he wasn’t. Due to the fact that they were not financially ready to move into their own places, they decided to remain roommates until they could get their finances sorted out. The boyfriend however started to try and get back together with my friend, starting about six weeks ago and was relentlessly asking whether or not they could try again. As much as my friend at one time loved him, it was just too much risk, trouble and heartbreak and made what I consider the wise decision to move on and scheduled himself to move out in mid-September.

Trying to keep his life going, he got a great new job, starting hanging out with friends he hadn’t seen in a while and was generally keeping himself busy. On Tuesday, after a great lunch with one of our mutual friends, he came home to a note, keys and the wallet of his ex. The note was a suicide note detailing what he intended to do to himself (prescription drug overdose leading to drowning), instructions of what to do if his body was found and a long diatribe blaming my friend for all his woes. Checking the computer it seems that the note had been forwarded to at least a half dozen family and friends.

Needless to say, the police were called, friends were called and the search was on. Luckily there had been less than a twenty minute window between one leaving and the other arriving at home. The police found him five hours later in the girders of a local bridge about five minutes away from an overdose, handcuffed him and immediately took him to the hospital. When my friend got home, more emotionally wrecked than ever before in his life, he proceeded to go looking through his ex’s stuff to see if there was anything else he should give the doctors/police that would assist in their evaluation of him. That’s when he found the original note. This note outlined how sorry he was for having killed my friend before taking his own life. HE HAD INTENDED TO KILL HIM AND THEN HIMSELF!!! Needless to say the minute we got that call, arrangements started being made to move him out of their shared abode IMMEDIATELY. Oh and then he got the call from his ex, still in the hospital asking “So will you take me back?” What the….?????

While all of this is crazy, what seems even crazier is that the doctors have advised his friends and family that the doctors intend to release him after his medical condition stabilizes, whether he sees a psychiatrist or not. Umm okay I know that psychiatric care in BC is a bit of a joke these days (take a walk through the Downtown East Side of Vancouver), but come on. This guy should be under observation for at least a week or two. Here’s hoping this saga doesn’t repeat itself anytime soon and that he gets the help he really needs.