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The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/LucyAriaRose on 2025-01-29 05:01:59+00:00.

I am NOT the Original Poster. That is The_Drunken_Otter. He posted in r/TrueOffMyChest

DO NOT Comment on Original Posts. Latest update is 7 days old. I am not the Original Poster. Read trigger warnings

Trigger Warnings: faked suicide; suicidal ideation; bullying; depression; PTSD

Mood Spoiler: incredibly sad but OOP will be ok

Original Post: January 20, 2025

In 8th grade I met this girl, North, she was in my band class, and the two of us hit it off. I asked her out on a movie date and from there we became boyfriend and girlfriend. She was my first girlfriend and things were going alright. That was until her dad got a new job across the country in California. North moved away, but we decided to try out long distance dating through our freshman year.

We were not built for long distance dating, I couldn’t protect her from bullies, hug her when she was crying, or tell her it was going to be alright when she told me about her depression. We got into arguments about god knows what, but decided to keep the relationship going because her dad was trying to transfer back closer to our hometown. That was until she stopped texting me around Christmas and her sister sent me a funeral program and asked me to go to California. North’s sister told me that she took her own life because the bullying was getting too much and that I wasn’t there for her when she needed me. It broke my heart that I couldn’t go to California for the funeral, and for the past 8 years I’ve mourned her loss.

I spent the entirety of my high school career trying to rebuild myself from all the damages. I went to meetings for people who have lost family members and loved ones. I went to therapy for 4 years to try and help process the loss. I had to learn how to become dependable because I didn’t want it to happen again. And after working on myself for 4 years I asked out one of my classmates, Lucy. We started dating the tail end of our senior and are about to celebrate our 4 year anniversary in April.

Last night I got a notification from Facebook saying that I got a new friend request. I opened the app, and found out that it was from North. She looks older, but it’s undeniable that there are pictures of her as an adult with her fiancé and a her newborn daughter. I spent 8 years of my life believing that she was dead, but here she is with undeniable proof that she has been living a great life without me. My stomach is in knots, my heart is sinking to the ground, and my mind is racing trying to figure out what happened and what I should do. Do I accept the friend request? Do I ignore it and try and move on? I feel completely lost, and I feel like my entire life has been a lie. I’ve spent the entire night looking at pictures of her and her family, floored that she would do this to me.

Some of OOP’s Comments:

Commenter: Whatever you do, please discuss this with your current gf as well. She will likely feel betrayed if you take up contact with an ex from which you never got closure without telling her. That being said, I would accept the request and ask her about the fake funeral and everything. You have a right to know.

OOP: Jesus, I didn’t even think about how to talk to Lucy about this. I know I need to tell her, but I don’t even know how to bring it up.

Commenter: This is your present, don’t ruin it or hurt someone chasing a relationship with a scammer or AI

OOP: It’s not AI, the account is friends with all the members of her family. Her dad, step mom, sisters, etc. This is actually her

Commenter: Might the sister have done it without North’s knowledge?

OOP: North was the one to stop texting me first. I don’t see a world where she ghosts me and her sister just so happens to send her regards.

Commenter: Sooo, I don’t know if it’s the healthiest option, but I would 100% want closure. Accept the friend request and send her a message saying how happy you are to see that she’s alive since you were under the impression she committed suicide. How thankful you are that it was a lie that and that you’re happy she’s clearly in a better place.

Do not accuse her of anything. If you feel inclined, let her know that her “death” led to you dedicating a part of your life to being the person you felt she needed at the time. Let her apologize if she does, dont feel inclined to accept it and feel free to let her know that she caused a lot of hurt. I wouldn’t engage beyond finding closure and I 100% would block her after getting it

OOP: I do want closure, but I don’t want to chase it with how stirred up I am right now. I don’t know if I’m happy that North’s alive. Don’t get me wrong I don’t wish death upon her, but I feel upset that she would do that. I dedicated a third of my life to her, and now that dedication is feels like it’s been ripped from underneath me.

A part of me is happy that she’s alive, but I’m also angry, devastated, and heartbroken that I wasn’t the person she could simply talk to. That I was such a little shit that it was easier to fake her death than it was to break up with me.

But also so much has changed for me coming from this. I’m happy with how my life is turning out, but so much of that came from wanting to do right by her memory. And now it’s just… I don’t know what it is, but I know it sucks.

Commenter: That is wild, I am sorry to hear it!

Have you ever Googled her name in those 8 years, and did nothing about her ever come up? Did you follow her on any social media at the time you were together, and did all those accounts simply stop updating? Did those accounts have an In Memoriam post or anything like that?

OOP: She’s always been coming and going with social media. She’d make an account, stop posting for a 6 months, then make a new one whenever she wanted to restart. I have tried googling her, but she shares a name with a UCLA professor so UCLA is the only thing that comes up for miles of scrolling.

Update 1 (Same Post): Sometime over the next 24 hours

Update (CW thoughts of Suicide): thank you to all who have responded. I want to get to each and everyone of you, but for now I hope this update will do. For now, I have decided to wait until Lucy gets home from work before I make any decision on whether or not to accept the friend request. I want to know what she thinks, and I can always depend on her to keep me level headed. But until then I just kinda want to sort out my feelings.

I remember the day that I found out about North’s supposed death. It was a few days before Christmas and the snow just started to hit the ground. I remember walking to the edge of the neighborhood along the Main Street. I sat in the sidewalk, watching the cars, thinking about how if I walked onto the road, they wouldn’t be able to stop. I was sitting there on the sidewalk contemplating for what felt like hours. It was there I decided I wanted to keep living. It was the most important choice of my life.

But now that choice feels hollow. It feels meaningless. Every decision that I’ve made since then has come from that choice I made 8 years ago, and now it feels empty and without promise.

I’ll keep you guys updated on what Lucy and I decide. Please don’t think for a second I plan to do anything drastic, I really don’t, and I want to keep making that choice to live. But for now I just need to figure out my meaning.

Update 2 (Same Post): January 22, 2025 (2 days from OG post)

Update 2: I accepted the friend request. After Lucy and I talked about it, we agreed that the possibility of getting some sore of closure would be worth it. So I accepted the friend request, and sent out a text saying hello.

About an half an hour later, I received a notification that North responded. We started talking a bit, talking about how our lives have been. Turns out, her and her finance were in town visiting family, and it started to make her think about all the hurt she costed me, and that she wouldn’t feel comfortable moving on with her relationship, without knowing if I was ok.

She tried to apologize, saying that we were dumb kids, and that it seemed easier to ghost me instead of break up with me. She told me all about how in some messed up teenager way, she thought giving me an explanation to her ghosting me would make it easier to move on, and so her and her sister concocted the whole story.

I told her about the years of therapy, the years of loneliness, and how guilty I felt when I started dating again. I told her about how I used to think she was the one for me, even through the nights of arguing, and that she left me more hurt than if she just threw me away. And I told her that in some weird way, I’m thankful to her. Her death changed me for the better and I would not be the man I am today if it wasn’t for her.

I then texted “Having said that, I will not accept your apology, It’s a shallow attempt to free your guilty conscience before you get married. If you were really sorry, you would have said something sooner, you would have apologized sooner, or would not have…

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