fight for it

Have you ever had that feeling that in order to keep yourself on the right path, your path, you've got to walk away from a friend?

I've been getting it a lot recently.

After my mum moved out, all the divorce stuff, the arguments, one of my friends falling seriously ill, issues with my brother, relationship problems and new experiences, I think I've managed to get one tiny little grain of goodness out of everything. I know myself now; my limits, who I am, where I'm going. I've accepted myself, and I've moved on through all the shit. 

Sure, I have my lapses. I get dragged down with school and worries about my friends, and I feel like giving up. I have my mood swings. But I pick myself back up, never question whether it's worth living still, and come back stronger than before.

Because this is life.

You can't walk around permanently depressed, but neither can you have your head in the clouds. You've got to fight to keep yourself in the middle, and you can't give up. Giving up leads to a downward spiral of shit, and  all it ends with is suicide. I've seen it, witnessed it, tried to stop it. I've been there at the absolute breaking point. 

Let me tell you a story, or two. One of my friends started losing weight, extremely fast. Then she collapsed whilst in school on three separate occasions. On one of these occasions when she hit the ground she started shaking and twitching uncontrollably; she was having a fit. It was on the main corridor, and at least 30 kids saw the whole ordeal.

For her close friends, it was horrifying. We didn't know what to do, how to react, and after she'd been taken away in an ambulance my best friend sank to the ground and burst into tears. Personally I was too shocked to react at first, and so it was with vague dis-attachment that I tried to comfort the friends that were crying their eyes out. Then, like wildfire, the rumours started.

Cancer? Epilepsy? Anorexia? Bulimia?

The rumours sent us spare, but they affected her best friend most. The girl who'd collapsed (I'm purposely not mentioning names) was out of school for a fortnight, in and out of hospital. Her best friend started acting weird, and dark circles appeared beneath her eyes. She kept her sleeves rolled down, and she often sat away from us with her head in her hands.

Little did we know it, but Girl A (the one who collapsed; naming her this to ease confusion) collapsing and the events afterwards set off a kind of chain reaction for Girl B (her best friend).

It all came to her head on a Thursday, at lunch time. Girl B had been having problems with her boyfriend, and was missing Girl A like mad. She couldn't deal with it everything, that much was clear. I remember one of my friends gently taking her arm and pulling her sleeve up after we'd seen her wince when someone nudged it, and (for me, at least) it pulled at somewhere deep inside.

It was wrong, to hurt yourself like that. Why go against your own instincts? From the moment we're born we're imprinted with the knowledge that Pain = Bad. I guess Girl B had been pushed right to the edge, so that Pain = Bad + Relief.

Relief from cutting yourself is only one thing though; Endorphins. Once released, they provide a brief sense of well-being. They block signals to your brain that indicate pain and stress.

In a weird way, looking at it like that, there's logic. But go back to the basics, and it's twisted, wrong, awful.

The look in Girl B's eyes was that of a broken soul; tired, lonely, pushed to the edge. Nowhere else to go. That moment right there was her breaking point, or at least as close to it as she could have got.

Of course, we got her help. She saw a special therapist and things gradually got better. Her boyfriend pulled his act together, and Girl A came back to school a whole three weeks later after being informed she had a low white blood cell count which meant her body couldn't fight off even the weakest of infections, and that she was suffering from severe dehydration because she hardly drank enough water. 

Now, around 8 months later, things are fine again.

But that Thursday, when we found Girl B and discovered what she'd done to herself, is as fresh as ever in my mind. What if we hadn't found out? What then? I don't like the dark thoughts that immediately spring into my mind when I ask myself those particular questions.

Going back to my original question, though... about walking away in order to help yourself? I have lots of people who are extremely close to my heart, and I'll freely admit that I'm strong... but not that strong. I'm not insusceptible to being pulled down. I've been through shitty times myself, had my mind in states I'd never wish on anyone.

I'm a fighter, though.

I'm fighting against shit like that as much as I can, and I note down when I'm starting to slip down that spiral again and I get my ass round to one of my best friends houses... because they know me better than I know myself. And very much like we helped Girl B, they help me. 

So, I guess my overall conclusion is; I'm on a slippery slope, but I'm climbing back up. Don't put slime beneath my feet, because it's taking enough effort to keep my head up as it is.

I don't want to walk around in a depressed haze. That's not me, and I know that now I've been through all this shit and accepted myself. 

Do I walk away?

... or do I test my limits?

Life is beautiful, even during the shit times. Don't ever even consider throwing it away. It's a gift.

K x