This is also when I should’ve left my terrible narcissistic ex who threw plates at my head. Remarkable echo of my own experience. All from this thread. What happened to me is that I’d found out an old North Florida friend of mine had killed herself. Not unusual from where I’m from. She and I weren’t that close anymore — her life had taken many tragic turns and she wasn’t someone I enjoyed hanging around with any longer in light of how much she’d degenerated.

But it still upset me that she’d taken her own life. It’s one of those “we dug coal together” things that people who were not there can’t really understand. I was still pretty young then (24 or so?) and I didn’t realize at that time quite how many of my North Florida compatriots would leave this green earth before they even hit 30.

So I guess I wasn’t being happy enough for my girlfriend that day and she said, “Why are you moping around? You barely saw her anymore and you didn’t even like her that much.” I probably should’ve objected more, but I mumbled something about, “We used to spend a lot of time together in my junior and senior year of high school” and let it be. Anything else would’ve caused her to blow up and I didn’t want to deal with that then.

There were so many signs that I should’ve ended that relationship. That was a big one.