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This story discusses suicide.
Rachelle was calling nightly.
If Donna didn't pick up, she'd get another call. Then another call and an accusatory message. Then a stream of messages asking where she was. It would continue relentlessly until she picked up.
Eventually, it started to wear Donna down. She couldn't support her friend in this way every night. It was starting to affect her own mental health and her evenings with her husband and children. She had to put in some boundaries for her own sanity.
The first time she decided to turn her phone off at night, she woke up to a suicide note. Rachelle had made an attempt on her life. Donna signed her up to get professional help, she took her calls again, and she supported her friend. But it was taking a toll.
She told Rachelle she needed to start turning off her phone at night for real this time. She needed that boundary.
The night Rachelle took her own life, she called Donna 81 times. But her phone was off and she was fast asleep.
Donna blames herself for not answering, but she also knows that it would just have delayed the inevitable. Rachelle was suffocating in her own pain and depression, sparked by the suicide of her husband years prior, and there was nothing she could do to help her.
She had talked Rachelle into attending an in-house treatment program. She'd sent gifts. She'd given her hours on the phone. She'd devoured books and resources on depression and suicidal thoughts. It'd help a little, but each regression was worse.
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