This is Mandy. Today I learned that she died from an overdose. I don’t know what her drug of choice was. I think she took anything she could get her hands on. I met her at the rehab place where I went every week to visit a loved one.
She was a very wounded girl who I wanted to save, but you can’t save people. That’s supposed to be obvious.
She was around 23, anorexic, miserable, desperate and defiant. She manipulated everyone around her. Even me. I didn’t really mind it, though. I wanted to help. I thought she just needed love and support. Everyone at the rehab place expected her to end up dead, such was her commitment to hurting herself.
One day after she left L.A., I erased her text messages, thinking they took too much room in my phone. I kept one though, and I don’t know why. It says: “Thanks, I had fun today.”
Poor little Mandy. Underneath the tattoos and bravado, she was an innocent child who someone must have damaged long ago.
She used to put her head down to show me her blond roots, which she hated. I always responded by showing her my own roots, the gray ones. It was like an alien greeting and it made us laugh.
Other people are reeling from losses today, and my heart aches for them, but it aches most for Mandy.
Send her a prayer to the god of your understanding.
I’m sorry for your loss Sis.
xx
So sad a story. I think this:
Tags: grief
is almost heartbreaking enough.
So sad.
I hope her spirit has found happiness!
So sensitive, dear Sister. So thin of skin, so open to the suffering of others.
I hope and pray that your thin skin never thickens. That you neve become armored by despair against the promptings of your loving heart. Don’t stop being Sister, continue as you are: so loving, so open to the world, Mother Wolf and not just Sister.
It costs you so much to care as you do. But still I say to you, sweet Sister of love, keep paying that price. Keep caring. Stay open.
It’s who you are, dearest Wolf. Take energy and solace from all those who care about you in turn. Lean on us as you would have others lean on you.
But don’t give up. Don’t turn away in despair. That would be the end of Sister Wolf. And that would be a loss for all the future Mandys who deserve to say, and mean it, “Thanks, I had fun today”.
And it would be a loss for me too. So in a spirit of utter selfishness, I say to you: You made a difference in her life. You mattered to her. Who knows how that small difference will reverberate through the future?
Sister George Bailey! You’re living a wonderful life.
That is so sad. I’m very sorry that Mandy had to go through such pain, and that you (and certainly others who loved her as well) have had to experience such a needless, tragic loss. She was obviously a beautiful girl, but mustn’t have been able to see it herself. I’m sorry!
Sorry for your loss, girl.
That’s heartbreaking. I’m sorry to hear this story, and of your loss.
I’m sorry for your loss Sister Wolf.
I have lit a candle for Mandy.
Maybe it’s because I’m hopelessly superstitious, but I think her text message to you was beautiful. I was given some very serious health news once (in the end, it tuned out the doctors made a mistake– haha! gotcha!) and my whole life flashed before me, as they say, and I suddenly felt so filled with love and tenderness for all the days I had fun and all the people I had fun with. I think everyone will have a flash of this feeling when they die, whether they take their own life or not. And so I second what Patrick H said. I hope she has more fun next time round.
Sorry and glad you saw the hope in someone most would dismiss.
When these things happen I never know what to say, except that it would be nice to know how to raise the dead.
Sadly, we can’t.
We can’t really save anyone either but it never hurts to try if we’re given a change to be there for somebody. She had a sad life but at least you were there to give her a few days that were brighter than the most she’d seen.
That’s very very sad 🙁 It’s such a shame when people’s own demons eat at them and make them that miserable. I hope she knew she really was cared about – your post tells me she was.
I’m sorry that you’re hurting and can offer you a soft, safe shoulder to land on. Prayers ascending for you and for Mandy’s family. Love & Blessings!
Sorry for your loss =(
Oh Sister. Terrible. It’s especially hard to lose someone you reached out to repeatedly. Thinking of you, and sending out good guidance for Mandy, wherever she’s headed now.
prayers have been sent, and to many of the gods i like. I’m so sorry, the poor girl.
I certainly will Sister. So sorry to hear about this. K
Thank you so much for taking the time to comment on this. Your expressions of compassion are blessings to Mandy, and to me, too. xo
Very sad, and seems like a soul who could not save herself x
Sorry about all this. Life is one bucket of piss by times. Prayers offered up.
Good morning, sweetness. I was thinking of you and hope your day is going alright.
I am so sorry.
So tragic. You’re right about not being able to save people but it doesn’t make it any less painful when it happens. Sounds like you were a good friend to her.
It’s so weird when we connect with people and we don’t understand how or why. . . we just do. And then sometimes they change us, more that we change them. Sorry to read this. It’s very sad indeed.
Thank you for your kind thoughts. Her funeral was yesterday in Atlanta. But I still feel she’s around, somewhere….
Some of us are gone, some are still here to remember the ones that are gone and try to enjoy life a little bit more in their name.
I wish there was afterlife, it wold be nice to meet them again.
Goodbye Mandy, safe journey.
It’s 2015….I was just thinking about Mandy and decided to Google her again and came across this post. I’m thankful that she came across kind folks like yourself.
She will always have a special place in my heart. I too wanted to save her when she was a part of my life.
She was my girlfriend for a couple years. Our first date was at Noodle, our next date was at Pride, we were inseperabe after that… we ended up living together in midtown Atlanta, had two dogs, Jack and Josie – she surprised me one day, she got Josie for me. Josie looked like a baby deer. And of course, Tilly, her cat.
Mandy was very outgoing, spunky, loving, caring, she was tiny, but she was the life of the party, she was more of a hippy girl back then, had long, blond curly hair, she could talk and make friends with anybody and was always on the go. She was pretty awesome.
She proposed to me one evening at Piedmont Park and she arranged a brautiful engagement party at Noodle with all our friends. We had a lot of good memorable times. Going up to the cabin, riding her horses, chillin’ with the dogs, she loved animals, she would do anything for her babies, especialy Jack. She loved him so much.
But…she had growing issues that were festering her since her childhood. Issues I couldn’t even control, help, or fix. After a while, things just started getting worse…
Alcolism, anorexia, bipolar, drug abuse, the lying…it all got worse. She would sneak off to god knows where. She would down entire bottles of Jack Daniels like it was water. There were a lot of things she was doing that I didnt know about. She would come home wasted or drunk. I really tried to help her! 🙁 we started arguing a lot more, her drinking was getting worse. I didnt drink, I felt like I needed to help her, so i stayed, I wanted to help her, I tried to help her… when she was drunk, it reminded me of times when my dad was a raging alocholic. Because of that, it made me not like drinking. He was 12 years sober when I called him one afternoon asking what I should do because Mandy was so drunk she was yelling at people in front of the house – he told me there’s nothing you can do to help her, she has to help herself first. I cried.
She promised to change, to stop, but her inner demons were overpowering her.
One day I came home from work only to find her having sex with one of our friends. They were drunk. I didn’t say anything, I just turned around, packed some things and was going to leave…she ran after me, she begged, she pleaded, threw things, cried and screamed for me to stay, but it was the final straw for me. I was done, exhausted, had enough.
I ended up leaving….she called my phone a million times, I ignored all of the calls and messages. I guess it got bad at the house after I left, her parents had to come and get her. The next day she checks into rehab.
While she was in rehab, she would write me letters. Telling me how sorry she was, how much she loved me, the future she saw with us. It was the genuine, Mandy in the letters. The one I fell in love with 😐
After rehab, she wanted to have a start fresh…she had this infatutaion with Philly…and so thats where her parents sent her. She was living in this loft by herself on 12th street…she wanted to see me and visit her, telling me she’s doing good and has changed….I go.
But nothing has changed 🙁 she was still drinking. She was still lying. Living where she was living wasn’t helping either, the people she met and had associated herself with there weren’t helping her get better.
Philly doesn’t work out for her, she’s back in rehab…she eventually moves back to Atlanta. Back to midtown. She calls me, has me visit her…her new place is a disaster. She has more tattoos, she has this huge ass butterfly tattoo on her chest, she tells me she wants to be a Suicide Girl (this magazine) and asks me to take photos of her so she can submit them to the magazine (I was doing some photography at the time as a hobby). I still cared for Mandy and wanted her to be happy and be supportive of her….but she was out of control. She was still drinking, using drugs, whippets were her thing and going out to bars. I couldn’t hangout with her, she was different, her lifestyle was crazy, she was out of control.
The years went by, I moved on from Atlanta and traveled the world, but she would faithfully call me every month… one time Mandy told me she was in LA doing modeling, then another time she was doing porn, then she was working at the bunny ranch, she had a new girlfriend… just crazy stories. I didn’t know whether or not to believe her.
The last time I talked to her was in August 2008, I was on the otherside of the world, she was in Atlanta working at a pizza place doing good, trying to get her life back together. She told me she loved me, and I told her I loved her too and we would catch up when I got back.
I didn’t hear from her after that, I wondered why… I lost her # in my old phone. I didn’t know where she was, what she was doing, how to get a hold of her…then one day I Googled her name and came across her obituary :'( then read a post of how she died and something her girlfriend wrote about how she found her 🙁 it was devistating news. I was heartbroken.
I think about her all the time…the good times we had. But I know she’s in a better place, at peace, surrounded by unconditional love, no more pain, and she no longer has to deal with those inner demons.
*sigh* glad I could write this and get it off my chest.
That was my time with Mandy Krasner, a beautiful soul. Rest In Peace, I love you.
Giselle, it’s 2018 and I can’t figure out why I didn’t see this until now. What a hair-raising story. You showed her so much loyalty…I wish that the sheer force of love could be enough to save such a troubled soul but we know that’s not how it works. Thank you for writing. xoxoxoxoxo