Fear and Loathing in the Midwest

I met one of my friends this weekend for lunch and he arrived tired and wiped out. After twisting his arm, he unfolded a story about his weekend, and how it had bruised his soul. I exaggerate, but only about the beating he had taken. He recounted a story considering a mutual friend of us, a certain Nancy, who had all in one weekend been broken up with, became absurdly drunk, broke/sprained her ankle, lost her keys, went to the ER and probably woke up with a massive hangover from dehydration of body and wallet (ER's visits are expensive). Oh, and for the cherry on the top, her car had been towed and impounded. Obviously, this is an example of kicking someone when they are down, almost to an absurd length.
Why recount this tale of woe? I bring it up for a number of reasons. First, pain shared is pain lessened. I care for Nancy quite deeply, and I guess by talking about it maybe there is something that I can do to lessen her fear and loathing. Secondly, I can look into myself, which introspective bastards like myself do when things happen to other people. Possibly therapeutic, or maybe not.
Nancy obviously cared about her ex-boyfriend. If one did not know her, her feelings about him were obvious by the pictures that she had placed on the Internet. She was obviously happy, and spent a fair amount of her time with him. People don't spend their valuable time engaging in activities or people that they do not enjoy, or like on some level. The ending of this was obviously painful, as she followed this by some obviously self-destructive behavior. In saying this, I am not disparaging her in any way. She gave a human response. I am sure that many people have been in the same situation before. Losing someone is always hurtful. You may put on a strong face, saying that you want to go out on the town, and have some fun in being newly single. This facade is just that, and really you want to feel something different.
I have often been in the same situation, but my method is far more damaging. I hold in the pain, stewing in its juices until it becomes comfortable like an old baseball glove. This glove curdles one's soul, and deadens you to the world. Almost everyone has to deal with it in their own way at some point in their lives. We need other people, as a function of the human condition. It is messy, placing you in a roller coaster soup of emotion, breaking some and strengthening others.
I hope that the self-loathing doesn't remain with her. There is always some, especially if you were not the impetus for the break, but even if you were, your mind can play tricks on you. From this self-loathing can come fear. Fear of being forever alone, fear of further rejection. This can be a self-fulfilling spiral if you let it cripple you.
Where do you go from here? Well, if I can answer that definitively, I would make millions. Since I don't have millions, my best will just be a guesstimate. First, the hardest part is to forgive yourself. People are always hardest on themselves, as they cannot hide what they think are their faults as they can from others. Even if it is your fault, forgive yourself. Second, know and care that others care about you. This is harder than it looks. At least for myself, it is the relationships that I cannot have or no longer do that I care about most. Finally, it helps that if you can find it in yourself that that quite possibly there is someone else who is going through what you are, and that people have survived the fear and loathing before, and found true happiness later.
In the end, this cuts to our greatest fear, fear of being alone. Some people overcome this fear early in life, others later, and others still never do. This fear has crippled me at times, at others disappeared and finally I settled into some level of acceptance of it. It is the fear that lies at the heart of women who won't leave their husbands who beat them, the crazed stalker hopeless in love with the actress, and the elderly man hoping for death after his wife of 50 years passed last year. We don't want to be alone, and strive to our utmost to avoid it.
My final question for myself is it all worth it? Even though my experiences would lead me to say no, the spark of optimism still pushes to the affirmative. Even though it is pain, it is living. Life is full of strong emotions, highs and lows. What makes us real are feelings, and the passions that drive them. Often in movies they speak of the true death of a person, the death of hope. In my mind it is the death of feeling, where you could easily be replaced by a automaton, ceaselessly moving through biological existence like a cog in a machine. To my few readers, embrace the fear and loathing. Conquer your fears, and continue to live the human experience. Such painful bumps in the road are worth it.