Feelings. Boooo.
So time for me to make a post that proves deep down I’m human (after all *daft raving*). I’m not big into emotions and shit, but I’m gonna write this anyway. Onwards.
Yesterday a friend of mine would have turned 23. Shit, I think it was yesterday. I get my dates mixed up and it makes me feel callous. Anyway, I say “would have” because she took her own life in 2005. We were in year 11. She was 17. My friendship with her was… interesting… because she was a very difficult person to know. She was incredibly intelligent, but manipulative, demanding and perpetually attention-seeking and I hated the bullshit she used to feed people. A lot of the time, particularly towards the end of her life, I couldn’t stand her. But the thing was we were still quite close friends. I’d known her since 1995 and sometimes I wonder if it was simply history that kept us friends later through high school. Actually, that’s bullshit. I still had some great times with her. But everything had to be about her and she constantly cycled through friends in the different stages of her life, always looking for more attention. Yet me and one other friend were always there, even if only in the background. When she died there were so many people who thought they knew her best and it sort of bothered me to watch and hear people almost compete to prove that they had been her best friend. Shit, I was probably guilty of that to a degree. Anyway, in year 11 her behaviour was becoming increasingly difficult. I’ll never forget apologising to our maths teacher after class once for her rudeness. I was so sick of her crap and I stopped trying to be diplomatic and stopped taking her crap. Throughout that year she was also in and out of hospital for “chronic food refusal”. Basically, anorexia, but not because of self-image issues, but rather attention. Sometimes, when she was back at school, it was like she was bragging about it. Obviously, there was something wrong in her head, but even when that’s glaringly obvious it can be so incredibly difficult to be understanding. I remember one chemistry class, when she was finally back after another stint in hospital, she was saying something along the lines of “it must be so nice to have me back” and I replied that, honestly, I was happy when she was gone and I’d enjoyed the extra space and being able to spread my books out. They were the last words I said to her. That weekend she attempted suicide in hospital, was put on life support, and was dead a week later. I don’t believe she intended to die. I truly believe she thought she’d be found before she was. To this day I have not visited her grave. Part of me doesn’t want to give her the satisfaction. In my own mind, that’s retarded, but it’s how it is.
Anyway, now I’m going to do something that I hate, and turn this into something about me. Don’t you hate that? When something horrible happens and people manage to turn it into a crisis about themselves? Well, I guess I’m about to do that, sort of. Thursday night I recalled it would have been the friend’s birthday, got a little introspective, but was generally ok with it. Last night I went out with a few friends, got a bit drunk, had a good night, nothing unusual. I got into my room, put on some music and found myself suddenly overcome with such intense grief that it worried me. I haven’t cried that hard in a very long time. I’m really not a fan of emotions and am at a total loss when confronted with people that need comfort, but last night I did something that I kinda resent myself for, and asked my mate to come over, just to have someone to cry at I guess. In my mind, me unloading emotional crap on friends is a very shit thing to do, even though I wouldn’t think twice about helping out friends the same way. My brain is stupid. But yeah. The first thing I realised last night is how important hugs are. I’m shit at touchy-feely, which means I often forget that hugs are good. I clung to my friend for dear life, fighting waves of hysteria, so ridiculously grateful that he was actually, physically there, listening to my shit. I couldn’t stop apologising, and although I obviously would have survived without him, I’m just so ridiculously thankful he came. The second thing that became clear was how much I hate, hate, hate suicide and how much anger I still have about my friend’s death. Not just because it was such a waste of life, but because it is such a selfish act. I see this girl’s family quite regularly and it is so crushing, especially when I speak to her parents. Ohh, I’m in Sweden on exchange, whilst your daughter, who undoubtedly would have lived a stupidly interesting life, is dead. You’ve left a fucking hole in the lives of so many people. It makes me so angry. How could your life be that fucking bad that you’d rather be dead than live with the people who love you? You knew you were loved. You were not totally alone. You had issues, more serious than the average teenager I’ll admit, but there were so many people who gave a shit. Just. Fucking. Why? And how? How could you be so narrow-minded to not think about how your death would affect others? Argh. I know it’s not so straight-forward, but even as I write now I get so furious. How could you? And I guess the final thing last night taught me is that I need to deal with shit a bit better. Seriously, I felt unhealthy. I could not stop crying. And she died six fucking years ago. And the anger. So much. And the fact that I had to dump all this shit on a friend. Just. Argh. So that’s why I’m writing this. Maybe it’ll help. Maybe it won’t. I dunno.
