My (31F) friend (37M) committed suicide about 2 weeks ago, and my sister (31F) and I are having a lot of guilt and trouble coping

About a year ago, I met "Deb" through a rec-sports league in our city. We really hit it off and became friends. As I became part of her social circle, I met her boyfriend "Mark". Mark was a great guy who was quiet and introverted, but with me and my twin sister "Nicole" (who also later became part of this friend group) he was very outgoing and personable, probably because the three of us shared an intense love for sports and all of the teams in our city.

As time went on, it seemed as if my sister and I became friends more with Mark than with Deb. He started hanging out with us more often without Deb for a variety of functions, and we had introduced him to people in our other social circles. As this was occurring, I delicately broached this subject with Deb just to make sure we weren't doing anything untoward. She said she was glad Mark was hanging out with us, saying Mark's a pretty quiet guy who doesn't make friends very easily. She trusted all of us. She even said that Mark once said that Nicole and I were like sisters he never had.

After a while though, I noticed Nicole getting more and more flirty with Mark. I know my twin sister pretty well and she's my best friend, so I can tell if she's crushing on somebody pretty hard. She admitted to me she was catching feelings for Mark and it had to stop. After some discussion, I recommended we should maybe scale back our interactions with Mark and just limit it to when Deb is present. Nicole thought that she should scale back from Mark and Deb completely (which in retrospect, perhaps she should've done), but I managed to convince her of my idea. This was about 2 months ago.

After this point, Mark would still text us about doing stuff we had done in the past year (sporting events, karaoke, quizzo). In the past, we would typically text him about hanging out, but after the "Coming to Jesus" moment with Nicole, we had stopped, and Mark started to take the iniative. We knew Deb wouldn't be at most of these outings (she's in the restaurant industry and works a lot of nights), so we ended up declining either because of "work" or "busy doing so and so". Some texts we didn't respond to. For the next 6 weeks, we only hung out with Mark a couple times, and Deb was present. Mark tried one last text--a basketball game--but both Nicole and I said we were busy.

2 days after the basketball text, Mark hung himself. There was no note or anything. He apparently had no prior history of mental illness. Nobody really has answers as to why. Deb seems to think it might've been his student loans. He had a good enough job, but his loans were apparently overwhelming. I do recall Mark once complaining about his student loans.

The memorial service was the most awful thing I ever experienced given the circumstances, and I say this as someone who lost her father 6 months ago after a long battle with cancer (which Mark and Deb drove 2 hours for to support our family). Nobody at the service could stop crying. Mark's relatives and Deb are stricken with grief and I feel so horrible for them. That evening after the service, Nicole and I went to her apartment and just cried together for hours. My sister still feels awful and thinks she might've been responsible--if we had not scaled back hanging out with Mark would he still be here? Was he depressed we weren't hanging out with as often?

I'm also carrying so much guilt and I haven't stopped crying for 2 weeks. I'm crying uncontrollably right now just typing this. I could understand why my sister had to scale back because she was crushing on Mark really hard, but that didn't mean I also had to scale back because I had no such feelings for Mark ... Or maybe I had feelings for him too and knew subconsciously I was setting myself up for hurt otherwise? I literally can't process it. I also feel responsible and I think if I accepted Mark's invitation to the basketball game he'd still be here, even if it was only he and I who went (I had never hung out alone with Mark before). Maybe it wouldn't have felt weird and I think Deb would've been fine with it because she trusted all of us.

Maybe I could've rounded up some people to also go to the game besides Nicole and me? Even though the people in Mark and Deb's friend circle whom I know and the people Mark knows in my friend circle aren't basketball fans at all? And work has been legitimately kicking my ass lately? But I just feel like I'm making pathetic excuses in light of what ultimately happened.

I took a personal day from work today because I realized a few days ago I needed to see a therapist, and I have an appointment later today. And I'm familiar with this forum so I wrote this post as a way to gather my thoughts for my appointment, but I'd also welcome any tips or advice as to how to cope with my friend's suicide.

tl;dr: Friend committed suicide 2 weeks ago and feel guilty about it and maybe could've done things to avoid it, need tips on how to cope and basically function

Submitted December 05, 2019 at 10:22AM by JLT42588 https://ift.tt/2r8tlQF