The other thing about the accident that effed my friend up was that another person in the same accident didn't make it, which means he's been facing a lot of self-doubt; why is the guy with a job and kids is gone, and the unemployed guy with no family is still around? We talked about this one a bit.

I am now thinking that not exactly survivor guilt is a default human experience. At some point you're going to lose people, potentially in a really brutal way. At which point you're going to run *right up against* two basic thoughts; 1) this person who you value highly is gone too soon and 2) why the hell are *you* the person still around? And unfortunately the answer is "because that's just what happens sometimes." It has nothing to do with deserving, undeserving, or how you spin the story; it's just how things played out.

This is personally relevant to me, too, because I've spent most of my life with a sense of "why am *I* the one still here?" This has gotten better now that I'm no longer so caught up in self hate but it's obviously still there thanks to covid and the steady loss of people to health issues and suicide. Much like the accident which theoretically should have killed me, much like being put in traumatic situations which have put me at far greater risk of suicide, that was just how things happened to play out. I didn't deserve it; I didn't not deserve it; it just happened.