#letter to a former friend

[randomthoughtsaboutdepression]

A letter to a former friend

I need to say these things. They don’t change anything between us and we don’t have to talk about it once you finish reading this. But I need you to read this. As I know you know, my life hasn’t been easy. So please try to understand what it means when I say, this last year and a half has been the worst year of my life. Every thought I’ve had, every word that has come out of my mouth, every nightmare I’ve woken up from in sweats, every interaction I’ve had with the world around me has been about my depression. I didn’t want it to be that way, but I couldn’t control it. I’ll never be able to describe the pain I was, and still am, in. There are no words that will make you understand. But I need to try. Imagine not sleeping for two days straight because you can’t stop thinking about all the hours you would lose. Imagine spending all those hours of not sleeping, crying instead. Imagine a brick in your stomach. A brick that makes it impossible for you to breathe. No matter how many breaths you take or how long you hold them, you will never get enough air. Imagine flinching every time you hear another person. Every time you even think you hear a door open or close, you stop breathing. Every noise makes you feel like you just jumped out of a plane. Imagine fighting back tears that burn your eyes on the way to school in the morning. And while sitting in class taking notes. And on the train home. And while making a dinner that will taste like nothing and talking to your roommates and doing homework. And then imagine it for the next 500 days. Imagine carrying around the heaviest backpack you’ve ever felt and then imagine that it’s magnetized to the Earth’s core. Imagine trying to get out of bed with it. Imagine trying to shower with it. Imagine walking to the train with it. Imagine sitting with it in class. Imagine making food with it. Imagine forcing yourself to eat that food even though you’re not hungry. Imagine going grocery shopping, doing laundry, hanging out with friends, doing homework. All with that backpack. Exhausted yet? Imagine the feeling of shame when someone discovers one of your secrets. Hold on to that shame and carry it around. Live in constant fear that someone will discover your darkest, most shameful secret, even though that secret doesn’t exist. Imagine that everyone close to you thinks you’re a burden. They’re tired of putting up with you. Everything you say, everything you do is wrong. You’re annoying and needy and boring and not fun to be around and you ruin everything. They never wanted to be friends with you in the first place. Nobody likes you. Imagine feeling guilty. Now imagine feeling guilty over everything. Everything you do, everything you say, every interaction you have, every choice you make, every choice everyone else makes, it’s all your fault. Everything is your fault. Imagine feeling worthless. Feeling so worthless that you’ll wait until midnight to eat for the first time because someone else was in the kitchen and you’d be in their way. Feeling so worthless that you don’t use condiments, dishes, containers, entire rooms because they are not yours. Feeling so worthless that you don’t accept help. Feeling so worthless that you feel like your physical body takes up too much space. No matter how small you curl up, you are still taking up too much space. You’re taking up too much oxygen. You don’t have the right to breathe. Because you are worthless. Imagine that after months of feeling all of those things, that you wake up one morning and feel nothing. Not empty, just nothing. Imagine that girl in the horror movie, the one in the psych ward who stares despondently at a wall and never talks or eats or moves. You’re that girl. Except you have somewhere to be, so you’re that girl while in class and with friends and at work. Imagine wanting to be done. Wanting to rip a hole in the space-time continuum and curl up inside of it and never come out. Imagine wanting to stop time, stop days, stop everything around you because things- homework, health insurance, bills, friends, tuition, goals, ambitions, they just keep lapping you. And you just want to make it all stop. You want everything to just stop, for one minute. Because you are done. You can’t do it anymore. You can’t keep surviving. You’re too tired. It’s too much- Then realize that these thoughts are the beginning. The beginning of not wanting to live anymore. Of wanting to kill yourself. Now imagine trying to explain to someone why you’re upset. Try to explain what caused this. Try to explain why you can’t talk about anything except your depression. Try to help someone understand why you dropped off the face of the planet and can’t even be a human being, let alone a friend. Make them comfortable with just how not okay you really are. Make sure your symptoms don’t make them uncomfortable. Make them understand even though you don’t understand. Even though it’s not your job to educate them. Because if you don’t hold their hand and walk them through it, they’ll leave you. And really, no one actually cares about you. You should just stop trying. They don’t care. They’ll never understand. You’re a burden to them. They’ll leave you and it will be your fault. Because everything is your fault. Except that, for the first time in my life, I understand that the ruins of my relationships are not my fault. I’m not saying I’m blameless. I hold responsibility for my actions. But I didn’t do this. I am not responsible for my depression. It’s an illness and I don’t have to keep internalizing every thought and action and choice that my depression shoves me into as if it defines who I am and what I’m worth. Our relationship being swept under the rug isn’t my fault and this burned bridge isn’t mine.

[mrpatrouiousachatz1993]

A Letter for a former friend

Dear Former Friend,

I doubt you remember me anymore but we were friends back in Middle School. We didn't attend the same school but we did attend after school activities like acting classes. When we were younger we were very close. I guess if we were to put it in a modern context we were like Paige and Chloe from Dance Moms. You were an older sister to me. Then when I was a Freshman in High School and you were a Sophomore things changed. You stopped talking to me, you stopped associating with me. I understand the reason. It was because you were busy with school, family, and so on. I wish one day we could be best friends again because I do have something important to tell you because I feel I was never honest with you about something and I want to personally tell you the truth.

Sincerely,

Anita Achatz

[lochnessa-monster]

Dear L,

It's been over a year since we've had a real conversation, did you know that? I'm aware of it almost every day. But now you're too busy for me, unless you're having panic attacks and need advice, of course. The last time we talked in person, you spent an hour telling me what a terrible friend I am because of a fight I didn't even know I was involved in. We were best friends for years, but you let someone else's animosity (which I STILL don't know the reason behind) turn you against me and then verbally tear me down when I was already so low. You claim we're past it, but nothing has been the same since that night, and I can't look at your name or your photos without both that ache and anger rising up.

Since I can't talk to you, I'm writing here. Because if I hold this in anymore, I'm afraid I might burst, and I deserve to feel happy and free of you the way you've made yourself free of me. Be free of people who cause you stress, right? I unfortunately didn't have the option of giving up on you and sending you away as you did to me, and I can't turn my back on you like you did to me, so this letter you'll never read is what I have.

Your betrayal hurts, L. And that's what it is, however you paint it for yourself, to me. You gave up on me. You said when we last spoke that we just had to adapt our relationship. That we had to become a different kind of friend. But you're no friend at all anymore. You promised me when you called my parents crying about how you were too scared to be responsible for me (even though B was the one who actually stayed with me on those bad nights) that we would stay in touch, that you'd be there for me, that you still loved me. But except for a couple of holiday cards and a few texts on my birthday, the only time I have heard from you is when you needed help. No matter what I've said or not said, you disappeared, and only bother to acknowledge me when you need something. And that's bullshit.

I love you too much to tell you to fuck off, but god, is it tempting sometimes. I had my entire world turned upside down a year and a half ago - a change that I did not want or welcome, that I spent 24 hours literally screaming back and forth at my parents trying to fight, until I was so exhausted I couldn't anymore. And you promised me you still had my back, you wouldn't leave, that I was in a different place but not gone.

You lied, L. You turned your back, you disappeared, and it's absolute bullshit that you think you can still ask me for help when you're down. I loved you. I love you. But you are no friend anymore. And that hurts. A lot.

I hope you're happy, I do. I really hope for the best for you, but at this point, I don't know if I can try to be your friend anymore. I have some amazing ones, L. Ones who didn't turn their backs on me when things got scary or difficult, ones who didn't disappear just because I was no longer physically near. We have a lot of good times together, and I have so many less bad days. I thank you for encouraging me to get help, but don't you dare ever credit yourself for "saving my life". I also hope one day all of your self-reflection will show you this truth: you sent me away, you turned your back, you pushed me away, and this ever-growing void between us is something you created, and when the pieces began to fall away, no matter my efforts, there was nothing I could do to stop it. I'm only human, L, and despite mistakes I've made in my life, I did everything I could to hold on to you. But you let yourself slip away, and it's time to let you go. I hope when you miss me, you realize that.

I hope life is kind to you.

Anna