#44 — What Do You Lose When You Carry Other People's Pain?
Content note: this episode centers on suicide loss, discussed directly. If that's not something you're in a place for today, it's okay to sit this one out.
Our caller found their housemate in the home they shared, staged in a way that made sure they'd be the one to find him. He'd also been their romantic partner at one point, and one of their closest friends. The application that got them on this call was written about a month shy of the one-year mark.
They used to believe in ghosts, built on a childhood theory that energy can't be created or destroyed, so it has to go somewhere. Standing alone in that house afterward, they gave it every chance to prove them right. Nothing came, and that absence is what moved them somewhere new.
In the days after, they became the one holding the certainty for everyone else. Friends kept saying it wasn't sinking in, that they couldn't believe it — and our caller, having seen it themselves, became the person other people leaned on to say it was real. A recurring dream followed: finding him alive again, undone each time by a conspiracy where everyone who loved them had lied to punish them. Even inside the dream, the relief of him being alive outweighed the betrayal. In the years since, part of that dream became true in its own way — not him coming back, but the blame that landed on them anyway.
Topics covered:
08:24 — A childhood theory about ghosts, built on thermodynamics
09:19 — Standing alone in the house, waiting for any kind of sign
22:02 — Becoming the one others leaned on to say it was real
23:39 — A recurring dream, and a conspiracy that felt almost believable
27:06 — Losing a shared friend group, and where the blame landed
39:07 — Going back to work, and a memory that disappeared into 2025
Book recommendation: The Death of Jane Lawrenceby Caitlin Starling (see the full list of Anonymous Book Recommendations here)
Related episodes:
Anonymous #33 — Why Does Some Grief Get to Be Spoken Out Loud and Some Doesn't?
Anonymous #2 — Is It Possible to Make Peace With a Loss You Saw Coming but Couldn't Stop?
If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.
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