Ghosting
Ghosting someone is hurtful, whether it’s a friend or within a relationship, but often it’s about the other person, not you.
A friend of mine had a girlfriend disappear from her life for no apparent reason. They’d spent the day together, said they’d meet up again soon and then nothing. No texts, no calls, no interaction on social media. Months went past. She felt ‘upset, betrayed, angry and shocked. It was as bad as a relationship breakup’. It was the not knowing why and second-guessing herself. She assumed she’d done something wrong. Three months later her friend reappeared in her life with a text to say that she’d had a bad breakup, things had gone wrong in her life and she’d retreated. An explanation at last but my friend said, ‘It was so disrespectful I couldn’t forgive her.’
Ultimately, friendship is about communication in good times and bad. If you’re going through a rough patch – days, weeks or even months – let your close friends know, even with a text to say, ‘Having a hard time at the moment and not up to socializing. I hope you’ll understand. Taking some time to regroup and hope we can see each other when I’m back on my feet.’
If someone disappears from your life and you’re feeling helpless, upset and confused by their actions, take back control. Write them an old-fashioned pen-and-paper letter explaining that you don’t know why they walked away from your friendship but you deserve to be treated better. You wish them well in their lives but anyone who lacks the good manners to explain why they no longer want to spend time with someone they once considered a close friend doesn’t deserve your love and energy. Hopefully this will give you the closure you need to move forward.
The Friendship Formula survey…
Have you ever had a friendship turn toxic?
70% Yes
30% No
‘She lied to me and slept with my fiancé!’
‘I’ve learnt never to mix business and friendship. It turned out I was being used for free services and as soon as I stopped allowing them to use me for freebies or discounts they bad-mouthed my business, spread untrue rumours causing loss of clients.’
‘Yes, always over a boy – they either slept with or kissed a boy I was interested in!’
‘A friend was always belittling me behind my back and the icing on the cake was she had an affair with my now ex-husband.’
‘I was gradually frozen out by a group of friends. The worst thing was our children were friends and they froze my daughter out too! Bitches!’
‘We were due to go away on holiday together but instead of booking a holiday with me she booked a solo holiday and didn’t give me a reason.’
9
The death of a friend
I met Katie Haines on her birthday, although I didn’t know at the time because it was her first day in our office and she didn’t mention it until later that day.
On 2 February 2010, Katie wrote on my Facebook wall: ‘Just remembered, I started at [magazine] on my birthday so it’s my anniversary with you and Karen [our mutual friend] this week!’
That was the kind of woman she was – celebrating our ‘friendship anniversaries’.
We met working on a celebrity magazine and quickly became great friends, gossiping about boys and sharing a bottle of wine after work with our mates. Katie left to work on another magazine but she’d soon had enough of celebrities and ended up working as a press officer at the University of Oxford. A ‘proper job’, we laughed. I was really proud of her.
Despite moving in different social circles and living far apart, we always kept in touch and arranged nights out when we could. I remember going to stay at her house, doing a pub crawl in the town and ending up playing darts in the pub with her boyfriend and mates. Another night, four of us girls went out dancing and ended up doing shots in a nightclub. I fell over. There was drunk karaoke back at her house and hangovers the next day. I’ll always be grateful to have taken a lot of questionable photos of us all on that night.
We talked dating, office bitches and career changes, played online Scrabble together, shared an obsession with McDreamy in Grey’s Anatomy and discussed our dream of writing books… The usual stuff women in their late twenties and early thirties chat about. More fluff than deep and meaningful. The future was bright. We were excited to see what it held for us. Optimistic because we tried to be good people and good things would come our way.
Because Katie really was a good person. Not perfect – no one is – but bloody wonderful. A smile so wide – on a Facebook photo of Katie laughing she commented, ‘Good god how big is my mouth?!’ I now have that photo framed – a heart so big, laugh so loud and energy that was contagious.
She ran marathons and raised money for charities while I cheered her on from the side moaning about the cold. She travelled with passion and devoured novels with the same appetite as me. We saw each other as much as our busy lives allowed.
Katie married the love of her life, Rich, in a fairy tale winter wedding in December 2009. We jumped around the dance floor with our friend Karen and her other best mates to The Black Eyed Peas’ I Gotta Feeling and Beyoncé’s Single Ladies.
When Katie and Rich returned from honeymoon, we arranged a girls’ night in with our friends Karen and Helen to celebrate Katie’s birthday. I’d love to be able to tell you everything we talked about that night but it’s a blur of red wine, cheese and very loud home-karaoke until the wee hours. I do know it was a hilarious evening making plans for the future. My last memory of Katie is standing at the window of the flat watching her get in the car with Helen and waving them off as they drove away.
Two weeks later the phone rang. It was Karen.
‘Katie’s dead.’
Confused, I asked which Katie. Because it wasn’t our Katie. She wasn’t sick. But it was. Katie had died the night before on 18 February 2010, her life tragically cut short when she died of carbon monoxide poisoning at home.
I can’t begin to describe the devastation Katie’s death left behind; and I won’t begin to compare my grief to that of her incredible family who I’ve remained in touch with.
The death of a friend is rarely talked about. When a friend dies, it doesn’t feel like you have the ‘right’ to grieve in the same way you can when a family member dies. Having lost my three grandparents in my late teens and twenties, I had experienced the sadness, loss and tears of grief, but while I still miss my grandparents to this day, losing Katie was, without doubt, the most devastating thing to happen in my life.
Grief is a physical pain. It sucks the air out of your lungs, pokes pins in your heart and twists your guts tight. The unexpected death of a loved one is surreal.
When Katie died, I called work and through sobs said I wouldn’t be coming in. Through tears I drove to my friend Karen’s flat – where just two weeks before we’d danced around singing and laughing – and sat in absolute shock. We messaged friends who’d worked with Katie so they would hear the news from someone they knew, and watched wide-eyed as Katie’s death made the London news, using an old photo of her that we knew she’d be pissed off about.
I don’t remember much from the first weeks following Katie’s death. You go back to work, but acting ‘normal’ feels like an insult. People don’t know what to say to you, whether to mention your friend or not. You’re emotional. Sensitive. Life is surreal. Just being alive feels like a betrayal of kinds.
The funeral was a blur of tears and shock for her friends and family. I’ve kept in touch with them over the past nine years. We mark Katie’s birthday and the anniversary of her death every year. We tag each other in photos and social media posts that bring memories flooding back. In 2019, Katie should have turned forty. A memorial service is taking place, which I know will be both emotional and uplifting.
Grief is there to fill the void left after death. When you lose a friend, you go through the grieving process of shock, anger and heartbreak. A million emotions and nonsensical thoughts. The loss of your future friendship, of what might have been. The guilt of
knowing your own grief cannot be compared to that of your friend’s family. And yet, it’s there.
All these years later, my grief for Katie lingers and occasionally surprises me. Sometimes memories just fill me with joy. A song we sang together makes me smile. I achieve a life goal and think, ‘I wonder what Katie would make of this,’ while deep down knowing exactly what she’d think. At other times, I’m wracked with sobs. And then I’ll realize I’ve not thought about her for weeks and feel bad.
Katie’s death changed me. I think when a friend dies, a part of your heart dies too. You’ve tasted a bitterness of life that you never quite recover from. But Katie’s death also made me a better person. When I was experiencing an ongoing period of unhappiness, one of the things that motivated me to go to therapy was Katie’s death – because she doesn’t have the gift of life and I should be taking care of myself and making the most of mine. It’s not enough to be alive. You have to be living. That’s what Katie’s death taught me – and I’m thankful to have had that sweet friendship in my life, because the love we shared is worth the pain she left behind.
Sadly, Katie isn’t the only friend I miss. My ex-colleague, Gavin Reeve-Daniels, tragically died from pancreatic cancer in September 2014. He was the funniest man I have ever met and I was lucky to sit next to him when we both worked at a celebrity magazine, where he entertained us with jokes and drew comedy sketches. He helped me take myself a little less seriously, put things in perspective and regaled me with stories of his cat and baby son. He left us for a shiny new job and our office was never the same following his departure.
Less than a year later, news broke that Gavin had cancer. Stunned, we sat asking, ‘What can we do?’ Often in these heartbreaking situations, friends are left wanting to help and feeling useless.
We were determined to show Gavin just how much he was loved. As I already organized charity pub quizzes, I suggested we held one to raise money for a charity of Gavin’s choice – Macmillan Cancer Support – and Gav Aid was created. In less than six weeks, a small team, which included Gavin’s incredible wife Leesa and journalists who had worked with Gav and adored him, planned a pub quiz which took on a life of its own: two rooms because so many people wanted to come and support Gav, celebrity quiz hosts and DJs, hundreds of quizzers from the world of journalism and PR. Gavin gave the most powerful speech I’ve ever heard in my life, a battle cry against cancer, and we raised tens of thousands for Macmillan Cancer Support.
Gavin dealt with his terminal diagnosis with grace, dignity and humour. He died suddenly, leaving all who knew him heartbroken. There was anger, sadness and a natural feeling that life just wasn’t fair. He was one of the good ones. Cancer really is a bastard.
A year later, Team Gav Aid reformed in Gavin’s memory. We got a bigger venue, more celebrity faces, more quizzers. A night tinged with sadness and tears as family members spoke in his place and his battle-cry speech from the year before was shown to a roar of applause. We raised thousands, this time for Pancreatic Cancer Action.
We took our disbelief and anger that Gavin and his family had had to suffer in this way and channelled it into the only positive thing we could think of – raising money and helping others.
Both Katie’s and Gavin’s deaths left a path of anger, pain, tears and frustration in their wake. Their stories do not belong to me. Both their families have kindly allowed me to share them here – because I couldn’t write a book about friendship without thinking about the people who have left an imprint on my heart.
We deal with a tsunami of emotions after the death of someone we love – friend or relative. Grief is, as the famous quote goes, the price we pay for love.
Lessons from grief
This is what my experience of losing a friend taught me about grief.
When a friend dies, you are entitled to your grief. Of course, our bereavement is different to the devastation of their family’s, but do not feel guilty for your grief. You may find yourself in a position where you are supporting your friend’s family or other friends and not able to express your own grief. Find a mutual friend, or someone who didn’t even know them, and talk. And talk some more. Grief is not selfish. And, just like love, I believe it should be shared.
If you’re supporting someone who has lost a friend, be patient. Don’t shy away from mentioning their name. Check in on them regularly in the weeks and months after. Remind them that they can talk about their friend anytime, and encourage them to share memories. Just listening is really all you need to do.
Be honest with work colleagues in the weeks and months after the death of a friend. Many things can trigger a wave of grief and it’s better that your managers and friends at work know that you’ve suffered a loss so you can excuse yourself and take a moment if you need to. There may also be someone you can talk to at work, so get in touch with HR and see what support there is for you.
Allow yourself to feel sad. You’ll no doubt be wracked with guilt for going out partying soon after a loss. I know I was. Grief can make you behave in ways you wouldn’t usually do: drink too much; have sex with people you shouldn’t; take uncalculated risks. So, while people might want to take you out and ‘cheer you up’ at some point after your friend’s death, one too many drinks can see you sobbing in the corner or unleashing your fury. Ask friends to look after you when you do go out and make sure you get home safely.
There is no timeline for grief. Loss is something you carry forward with you in life, not something you get over. Don’t put pressure on yourself.
Grief manifests itself in many ways, impacting on your physical, mental and emotional well-being. Looking after every aspect of your health is vital, especially in the early weeks after a loss. You may not feel like it, but getting outside in the fresh air, taking a walk and simply breathing will do you the world of good. Eat well. Avoid drinking too much. Don’t forget, alcohol is a depressant. Don’t be embarrassed to seek help if you need to: go and see your doctor, a counsellor or mental health specialist if grief triggers anxiety or depression. You owe it to your friend to take care of yourself in the same way you wish you could take care of them.
If you’re feeling lost and frustrated, channel your anger into doing something positive, like raising money for charity. Don’t suppress your emotions but do give them an outlet. It helps to find some form of purpose from a loss that makes no sense. In time, you may go days, weeks, even months without thinking about your friend. That’s OK, too. It does not make you a bad person. It doesn’t mean you didn’t love them, and it doesn’t mean you are over their death. You are simply living, just as they would want you to. Be kind to yourself and don’t beat yourself up.
Memories – and therefore grief – can come out of nowhere and smack you so hard in the face you feel you’ll need reconstructive surgery. I broke down at a rugby sevens tournament in Hong Kong months after Katie’s death because they played ‘our song’ – I Gotta Feeling by The Black Eyed Peas – which we’d danced to at her hen weekend and then wedding. When Grey’s Anatomy played Snow Patrol’s Chasing Cars during yet another death scene I was a snotty mess. That’s Katie’s song.
One day you will be able to look back at Facebook memories in your timeline and smile instead of sob. You’ll swap stories of drunk nights out with your friend’s family. If you can, catch up with your friend’s relatives and see mutual friends so you can reminisce, look back and laugh. If you don’t see them in person, make the effort to keep in touch on social media – especially your friend’s parents, partners and siblings. Their grief is insurmountable and the fact that their loved one is still remembered by friends for years to come will mean a lot.
Live your best life. Pay tribute to your friend by living your life to its fullest. Don’t feel guilt for the extra years you’re given that they miss, but make the most of them. Make happiness your only goal.
Appreciate your years. When Katie died, I promised myself I’d never complain about ageing. So, while my grey hairs make me roll my eyes, the
laughter lines around my eyes multiply each year and my left knee clicks and creaks, I remind myself to be thankful for all the signs of ageing. Growing older is a privilege denied to many wonderful people.
You’ll still cry for your friend randomly at times. And that’s OK too.
Andy Langford, chief operating officer at Cruse Bereavement Care, says:
‘The death of a friend, especially a close friend, can be absolutely devastating. There is no hierarchy in grief, so regardless of whether you are a family member or a friend, the death of a loved one can lead to debilitating sadness and grief and that needs to be recognized. Unfortunately, the death of a friend can be underestimated by society and in the workplace. Under the Employment Rights Act 1996, most employees have the right to take time off work if the person who has died is a dependant. This can mean that your employer might not give you time off after a friend has died, which can be incredibly difficult if you are grieving.
People who are grieving for a friend can assume their grief isn’t as important or as serious as the family’s, and they can feel guilty for showing their feelings. We all grieve differently and should not feel guilty for how we feel after the death of a loved one; we all deserve the right and space to grieve. The death of a friend can also affect relationships within the wider friendship group. We all experience grief differently and whilst some members of the group may want to regularly meet up and talk, others may feel isolated and alone. It can be difficult to predict and can cause conflict, which is common after a bereavement.
Everyone’s grief is unique and there is no right or wrong way to feel after the death of a friend. Take one day at a time and be kind to yourself by eating regularly and getting some rest. You might find talking to someone who knew the friend who has died helpful. Expressing your feelings through talking or writing can help you to open up about how you are feeling.’
The Friendship Formula Page 6