Tech

i'm in a sticky situation and i was curious if any of you had advice... my friend (kate we will call her) here at college had a friend from high school kill herself a few weeks ago. apparently the friend called kate the night she did it, kate silenced her phone because she was studying. so this in itself had kate pretty shaken up when she found out (understandably)

the big problem now is that the friend's mother (who is apparently a b*tch) and most of her high school friends are all calling her and telling her that it's her fault her friend is dead. for some reason it seems that everyone is against her for not picking up her phone, and no one who knew the friend seems to think it WASN'T her fault. this is what's really hitting her hard... it's been several weeks and a day hasn't gone by that someone hasn't called her to ask her why the heck she didn't pick up the phone or tell her that she's a horrible person for not doing so. i told her to just stop answering it, but obviously she feels like if she doesn't answer her phone now the same thing might happen.

as a friend who doesn't know any of these people, what do i do? i want to tell all these people to back off, but obviously that isn't an option, and she isn't doing much to defend herself, she just keeps taking it. i told her that her friends are being jerks and she needs to not let it get to her, but that's much easier said than done. how do you help a friend getting assaulted by people you have no contact with (nor really want contact with). i'm stumped whenever she brings it up.

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-Tim-

~I swear sometimes i feel like i'm married to a child.
~You better watch who you're calling a child, Lois, cause if i'm a child than you know what that makes you? a pedophile. and i'll be damned if i'm going to stand here and be lectured by a pervert.

shakran

someone needs to smack those idiots. Hard. Your friend is not a psychic. It's not like she KNEW the girl was going to kill herself. It's a terrible shame that it happened, but it is NOT your friend's fault!

Rodney

The real question is this: why didn't the dead girl call any of those friends who are bothering _your_ friend? Maybe they'd already blow her off or belittled her problems, or feel guilty because they ignored warning signs. Maybe they _caused her problems, especially Mom. Maybe they're using your friend as a scapegoat, to avoid guilt themselves.

Psychology by Internet's a pretty iffy thing, but I feel pretty strongly about this one: they're picking on your friend so they don't have to dwell on their own actions (or lack thereof). After all, your friend was way at college: _they_ were on the scene.

I'm afraid your friend is going to write them off. They've formed a pack against her; you know, how sometimes a bunch of girls will choose one who's a little different and start calling her the school slut, until everybody believes it? The same thing is happening here, only they've chosen your friend the sacrificial goat because _she_ didn't take the last phone call -- but some of the people who've been instigating it (probably Mom and a few others) were really the ones who could have and should have done something. But they didn't.

It's also significant that they're blaming somebody who isn't on the scene: the best kind of scapegoat is one who's not around, who you don't have to look in the face. This is underhanded, immature, vicious behavior -- and, I'm sorry to say, pretty typical of people who want to disavow any personal responsibility for what happened.

I guess that's the comeback: why is it my fault ? Why didn't any of _you_ on the scene do anything? Why did she reach out to me instead of you guys? Weren't you there for her?

Aside from that, get her to the shrink at the student medical center. She needs to talk to somebody.

ratbastid

Take her phone from her. Be her answering service for a while. You should agree with those "friends" that it's a total tragedy, but remind them that they missed the warning signs and cries for help too. Be civil, but don't take any crap. Take written messages for your friend when somebody legitimate calls. After a while they'll stop, at which point you can give her phone back to her.

Cynthetiq

people always want to make someone or something else the scapegoat to assuage their own souls so that they can look themselves in the mirror and sleep at night.

*sigh* be her answering service in the interim is a good suggestion.

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Toaster126

Indeed. Sounds like these people found the distraction they need so they don't have to answer to their own thoughts about why THEY didn't help.

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