see this first.
So it's been nearly a year since she can crying to me about her pain, nearly a year since I started to try helping. It's difficult to be there for someone when you are 300km away. It's easy to say comforting things like "I'm here for you", but when it comes right down to it, you'll always be on the other end of the phone, or on the receiving end of an email. It's easy to comfort an email. You can edit. You can think it through.
We decided that the stress from living in the middle of nowhere with parents that hate to see you fail was a significant factor in her depression. We also decided that the drugs had worked - she wasn't cutting anymore, and no longer felt like giving up on life. She'd left the couch for the real world, and so we moved in together: more like moving out together.
So she came down here, and her therapy had worked, and my therapy had worked, and we were happy little munchkins. However, the novelty soon wore off.
The drugs had won - she was dependant on them. And when she stopped taking them, everything crumbled. Now, instead of saying I'm here for her, I have to follow though. Instead of telling her to go get help, I have to be that help. I get to be the one to walk in on her cutting herself. I have to be the one to see the cuts up and down her arm. I will admit, I had no idea it was this gruesome.
Have you ever seen your best friend bleeding from both wrists and trying to pretend it was normal? Have you ever been watching tv and found razorblades on the arm of the couch? I hope not. Have you ever woken up to an empty house and a suicide note taped to the fridge? (It wasn't a suicide note, it was more like a letter, and more like a cry for help, considering she did come home that day)
She won't get out of bed in the morning to go to school, and it's taken her three weeks to write 200 words. She only goes to work because she has no choice. She wakes up while I'm in the shower and I meet her in the kitchen and she tells me, tears running down both cheeks that she's going to quit her job, drop out of school and live on the couch. My couch. I miss school, or I get there late because I won't leave her home alone and crying. And then she feels bad because I'm missing school for her.
Well I'm sorry. How dare I make her feel bad because I care?
I'm pressuring her to go and see a doctor, to take the drugs. I'm pushing the pills, because they made her feel better. So what if they made her feel like a phoney, they increase my chances of her still being alive when I walk in that door.