complicated grief

Hi, my name is Hannah. I need to share, so thanks for reading and allowing me to do so.

I lost my boyfriend, Matthew, to a heroin overdose in January 2015. I was 20 and Matthew was 23. We went to the same college, and he was actually my neighbor. His funeral was the first day of spring semester. I lived in that apartment for another year (which, in hindsight, was definitely a mistake).

I didn't know that he had an issue with heroin. We had never talked about it before, so his death was a huge shock. He actually died the day he was coming back from winter break. I had gone home with him to Maryland a few weeks before to meet his family and share the holidays. I was the last person he talked to that night before, and his mom found him at home.

I didn't know for five months that it was heroin. I found out actually when his mom came down, and they always wanted to see me and be with me for days on end (and that's a whole other complication). For months, she'd been asking me to get access to his phone. Now, I'm brand loyal to Apple, but he had an Android, with a like a pattern code -- for months, I told her that I didn't know the pattern, and that EVEN IF I DID, out of LOYALTY to Matthew, I wouldn't unlock it. She said she understood, but before she told me it was heroin in that Marriott hotel lobby, she brought his phone out and forced me to try.

It's been almost six years, and it still hurts??? Worse now than in a long time. I think it's about the friendship, and that I'm now THREE years older than he was when he died, and all the things I get to do that he doesn't, and anger at his mom, I think, and anger at him for the way he changed my life.

I just have really big feelings, and I keep them in, but here we go.

Thanks.

 

and it's so hard to be mad at him because I know it was just a big mistake