Please be careful how you block and delete people

I'm sorry you are in pain. The hard thing about addicts is that they usually end up dead unless they give up their addiction. Your ex is not dead because of you. He's dead because he took an overdose, doing the thing that he loved best. Hard truth. The only love addicts and alcoholics have is for their addiction. I should know, as I was married to one, and it ended our marriage.

Hard truth: Your boyfriend's death does not disprove the rule. We block and delete for a reason. Most of the time, compassion is wasted on men, because at the end of the day, they have precious little, if any, for women. History would show that they actually have NONE, and continue to place their needs first on a global scale. They already get all the empathy from women. They always have. They get their humanity catered to, but have yet to recognize that women actually have it.

Women live in a world of constant gaslighting and abuse. Allowing broken men to continue to manipulate, use our time and goodwill against us, and hang on like barnacles long after they have proven that they have nothing to offer us does not serve women. At all. FDS is about standing up for ourselves and our worth, and valuing our precious time and energy. We don't need to be reminded about men's humanity. Really, we don't. They need to be reminded of ours.

Men have no problem whatsoever discarding women. It is not a woman's job to bleed out for a man, or be constantly on-call emotionally for whatever closure he decides he can demand from her. A man who is unable to get himself together or provide her what she needs is not a man that a woman needs in her life. Block and delete works, because it works. Until we live in a world where men are just as concerned with the feelings of women as much as they demand and expect that we are concerned with theirs, block and delete will always be the best option for a woman who values her time and energy.

Your boyfriend did not die because of you. He died because of the choices he made, and you were not responsible for those. I suggest you talk to a good therapist to work through your undeserved guilt.

Hey, first of all, I'm sorry for your loss. But I won't just sit here while you use your tragic story to promote practices that harm women. Women are not rehabilitation centers for mentally ill men. If a man is in a mental health crisis, he needs professional help, not a text chat with some random friend. I have bipolar disorder and have been hospitalized for su*cidal thoughts 3 times. All 3 times, I took myself to the hospital for help. My friends are not my therapist. It's not their job to save me, always be there for me, or talk me out of every crappy decision no matter how I treat them. There is nothing you could've done to prevent your friend's death. If he really wanted to get help, he would've sought real, actual resources. They are out there. Self-h*rming behaviors are ultimately a choice regardless of circumstances. Some people have a harder time than others. But everyone is free to choose for themselves.

I hope I don't sound mean when I say this (I agree partially with the sentiment not to throw away your empathy and I am genuinely sorry for your loss) but the choice of your ex-boyfriend to overdose was ultimately his own. Anything could have led him to overdose. If it wasn't you blocking him, then it could have been anything. Losing his job, fighting with a friend, etc. I have never been addicted to substances, but I was suicidal for a long time in my teen years. I wasn't always a good friend. I once cut both my thighs open because I got in a fight with a friend of mine. You could blame said friend for getting angry at me, but ultimately I was the one who made that decision. I was the one who picked up that blade. There were so many other things I could have done at that moment. Reached out to my mom, reached out to a helpline, gone for a walk to clear my head instead. I went NC with my father last year. My father has cancer. He has had on-off cancer since I was a child (it gets treated, then it returns, then it needs to get treated again, then it returns again. It has been that way for 12 years now). There isn't much left that he can do about it. There's a chance he could die. Some might say that I'm depriving him of his daughter while he's sick, but he has deprived me of a father while I have been sick. The last time I ever spoke to him, we got in a fight bad enough that when I came home, I had to throw up from anxiety. Three days later I blocked him. He had to go in for an operation a month or so later. Sometimes there's never a right time to cut people out of our lives.

Nah, self-preservation comes first. Not going to keep communicating with a man and give him more emotional labour, just in case he might kill himself. We hear enough about "but what about the man's feelings?????" already thanks.

I’m very sorry for the pain you’re feeling but this is not a beneficial post to women. This “warning” might make a woman stay longer or dish out more emotional labour for a man rather than just cutting him loose. We are not therapists or rehabilitation centres for men. You were not cruel for blocking him. You do not ever need to explain yourself or give someone “closure.” Because that’s for them, not for you. I am glad you put yourself first. And I hope you continue to do so.

Girl, you are very swayed by his overdose and death. That makes you a kind and compassionate woman. That leads me to believe that if you tried the traditional breakup method of calling him over and explaining your feelings, he'd try to convince you otherwise and it's very likely he would succeed. Your own safety and wellbeing must be your priority.

He knows why you left. They always do, even when they pretend they don't. He was probably beating himself up for letting his addiction lost him the woman of his dreams. From there, two things that aren't necessarily mutually exclusive could have happened:

• He wants to quit. He hit rock bottom. So he did. Tolerance goes down very quickly. He had a relapse and injected the dose he was used to, but now that dose is too high. He overdosed;

• He was upset and stressed about finding out you left. He knows it's because of the drugs. As an addict, he seeks drugs to cope with stress. So he went and used it. He overdosed;

In both cases, it's not really about you. It is about how he copes with life.

Stay safe, and please seek counseling for your grief.

I'm sorry for what you have gone through. As other posters have said, you are not responsible for what your ex did, and you could not have saved him from himself.

Remember that the block and delete method is from a place of empathy and compassion for women. So many of us waste our time and our mental energy, sinking these precious resources into men who will use and abuse them without a care. How has this affected the collective mental health of women? How is it continuously affecting women's position in society, the contributions we could have made in that time, the experiences we could have enjoyed, had we not been concerned about a man who was just there to use us?

Block and delete is the greatest form of compassion, compassion for ourselves. When women take care of ourselves, the whole of society benefits, because women's energy is so powerful for spreading happiness to others.

i'm very sorry for all you've been through. i guess it's inevitable to feel some level of guilt about the death of someone who once was so close to you. but please, don't blame yourself for what happened. for a person to do that to themselves takes more than a block and delete. first, if he overdosed it's because he was addicted. unless you are the one who introduced him to the drug and encouraged him to develop the addiction, you're not guilty of his death. secondly, he was clearly depressed and suicidal. depression can be triggered by many factors, and a harsh breakup can be one of them, but definitely not the only one. the issue is much deeper. i bet there was a lot of other things happening in his life to make him so miserable he wanted out forever. third, being kind might have changed nothing about the outcome. do you think you could have saved him? and what about your own well-being? there is nothing wrong in prioritizing yourself. it was not your fault. he was sick and didn't find proper help. honestly, I think a kind way of ending things with him would have made little difference. break ups are always difficult and depression + addiction are usually deadly. there wasnt much you could do for him, unfortunately.

Sorry, but nah. I get what you’re saying and your own feelings on the matter are totally valid, naturally. But I’m not going to internalize someone else taking themselves out like something I could “do something about” if I just bent my boundaries a little and kept a line open. If I leave and he kills himself, I’ll be relieved he didn’t take me with him.

yep. you can’t be kind and compassionate to men with issues. i’ve had scary experiences and i’ve also had friends that were physically abused by their exes. one guy in my college that treated me like shit died from doing laced coke. trying to be nurturing as a woman can put you in danger. it’s so scary . i understand your pain though and i'm sorry. i've been in a similar situation but honestly he made those choices and you can't really help people like that unless there's serious intervention involved. i felt the same way at the time

As others have already said it’s really not your fault, and any option you could’ve taken could easily have led to the same outcome.

I’m sober now, but when I was drinking it didn’t make a lick of difference if friends, family, boyfriends were enabling, being nice and supportive, giving tough love, or setting hard boundaries. How I reacted to any of those was really a crapshoot and entirely based on what was going on inside my head.

If I relapsed today it’s honestly still a crapshoot if it would “work” more if people just cut me out of their lives or came through with their empathy and time.

Change needed to come from him, not you.

these are all such beautiful responses to a difficult subject. i love this community!

I am so sorry. Your grief is very real, compounded with the issue of addiction (you're trying to recover-- your recovery comes first!).

The truth is, it's not your fault. Your brain is trying to make it your fault to find an answer IMO. You weren't obligated to be your ex's emotional support buddy. If you hung around and he reached deeper lows without passing, I wonder if your brain would blame yourself for that too.

Please please take care if yourself and find a good support group and/or therapist who can help you work through this. it's so understandable and I could see myself feeling the same way if it happened to me. We're human and we want answers. Hang in there, and all the internet hugs if you want them <3

ETA: If we want to talk about blame, I cannot describe the depravity and white hot anger I feel toward the people who introduce tainted fentanyl-laced drugs into our countries in the first place. Illicit drugs were already dangerous and at risk of being impure decades ago, and misused prescription drugs were dangerous too. but now so many drugs have fentanyl and can murder in one dose. It's not your fault. We have a lot of very difficult environmental obstacles in this day and age. And so many of us are just trying to get by. Seeiously. Sending you love and healing.

What a weird coincidence a post like this appears on my feed. I struggled deeply with a former friend/ex-bf that I ultimately blocked. He also disclosed to me his struggles with a similar health issue we both suffered from and his mental health and it killed me when we drifted apart. He still treated me like the ultimate scrote and not how I wanted to be treated, but closing off to him probably shaved 10 years off my life span from the sheer stress of worrying about him. I empathize a lot with your post about not blocking off people we once shared memories with.

The straw that broke the camels back for me was when he willy nilly dm'd me again on ig to solicit me like I was some escort asking for sexual favors like how the FCK did we go from disclosing deep dark secrets to "hey wanna suck my ****". This was after 1 year of not speaking.. again. Like, sh!t we can't even have a discussion? I have better conversations here on FDS with fellow people I've never met in my entire life than someone I supposedly shared feelings with. Makes me hate myself.

I do agree with you though, it hurts my soul to block off men that I've befriended whether scrote acts before or not, knowing we all go through crap in life. Sorry about your ex-bf though. Give yourself time to heal.

Also cause I'm a total pophead, this reminds me of when Ariana Grande broke up with Mac Miller and people were giving her a hard time over choosing to break up with him because she knew he suffered from addiction issues. It was NOT her fault!! And this situation is not your fault either, OP.

I try to leave him unblocked because of the saying "don't block your blessings." But he is not a blessing. He is hell.

I'm so sorry for your loss. My ex-husband is an addict, and I find it hard to have sympathy for him because of the constant chaos he brings to our lives. He's not a safe person for my children and I to be around. But I know his time is probably coming soon, and I'm sure I'll feel different when it does. This post is a good reminder to have compassion for our fellow human beings.

A question to ask yourself is whether he still would have overdosed eventually if you had remained in contact. The answer is “most likely”. He was headed in that direction (that’s why you went no contact), and he would have still been going in that direction, regardless of anything you tried to do. And you would still be blaming yourself! For being too enabling, or for not trying hard enough to force him to get help. He already knew you wanted him to quit drugs. What would you staying in contact have accomplished, other than prove to him that it must not be that important, because you’re still talking to him. If you going no contact didn’t prompt him to overdose (which there is no proof that was the reason), then it would have been a fight between the two of you, or a time when you refused to drop everything to come talk him down, because it was the middle of the night, and you had work the next day. The people at fault are whomever caused the trauma he was trying to self-medicate for, and himself, for refusing to get help. Not you. Nothing you could have done would have made a difference, aside from getting in a time machine and convincing him not to get on drugs in the first place (it still might not have worked). I am sorry for your loss, and that your ex boyfriend was not able to quit drugs before they killed him. It’s a terrible thing to happen. But he’s not your child, or even your husband. You were under no moral obligation to “make it work” or “give him another chance”. And no doubt you already gave him plenty of chances, and tried repeatedly to make it work. Your going no contact with him could easily have been the motivation he needed to get help for his drug problem, but instead, he chose to double down and continue using. That’s on him, unfortunately, and there was very little you could have done to change the outcome. It’s normal to have feelings of self-blame when something like this happens; it’s part of the grieving process. But it’s important to remember that it wasn’t your fault, and staying in contact with him wouldn’t have affected the outcome. I hope that you are able to heal and move on.