still working on this paper. leave comments if you have thoughts, or think I made a mistake... I'm trying to be honest here.
She had called me earlier that night, letting me know everything was all right. Trusting her to tell the truth I had accepted that at face value, treasuring the time to spend with my boyfriend. We had been curled up on my bed, laughing over something that had happened that day. Things had been stressed over the last couple of days, leaving me grumpy, tired and worried. I hadn’t had the time to really see Aaron for about a week now. It wasn’t that I didn’t love him, simply that she was a larger concern lately. Between the daily crisis, and suicide control, school, and my parent’s anger, Aaron was far from my top concern. For a long time, my priority was simply, deal with the crisis, than see if you have any time, energy, or empathy for the people who mattered in my life. She mattered in my life, but not the way she once had. I couldn’t tell her how I was really feeling anymore. I couldn’t tell her what was going on in my life anymore without being attacked for being self-centered. Looking back, I sometimes wonder if perhaps in trying to create a semblance of normality I came across as being self-centered. I tried to talk about things that were going on since she often refused to talk about what was going on for her, or the easy trap of self-pity was something I didn’t want either of us to fall into.
Somewhere in the middle of the evening Aaron and I disagreed on something, laughingly fighting we got online for the first time that night, trying to find the answer to our question. She was online. As a joke, Aaron said something to her… teasing her about what had happened that day between her and Espen. The cold, terse response told me that something was seriously wrong. Worried, I tried to break through her walls of closed anger and depression. Asking her what was wrong she refused to answer. Finally Aaron went home earlier than we had planned in hopes that I could deal with her… another casualty of our relationship I simply accepted it as fact. Even the first time Aaron and I had spent together two weeks earlier, a game of monopoly, was ended early because she was not responding to phone calls, and pleas from mutual friends for her safety. I spent that night with her, holding her hand and trying to break the depression by simply being there with her; something she often had trouble with - if people weren’t there with her, then they were against her. As a friend once said, “Alicia sees people in two groups, her, and the rest of the world.” That day, and for a long time after, I was simply “her”.
After Aaron left, she spent two hours yelling at me; telling me that I was self-centered, that I needed to be there for her, that she was going to kill herself. In the end what was most impressed on me was that it would be my fault for not being available for her to talk to. For a very long time I had that conversation, and many others, recorded electronically on my computer. In fact, I had a whole folder labeled, “Conversations with Alicia”. Much like an iron chain, it sat there holding me down to the reality of every inadequacy I possessed. Throwing it out this summer was the greatest gift I gave myself simply because I let go of all the pain.
I have two pictures from four years ago; we were freshman in high school. In one of them she is standing against my door, turned slightly, laughing. She is wearing a black tank top, white button up shirt, and a skirt of mine. We had spent the night dressing each other in my clothing… We watched Coyote Ugly that night, danced around the house to the sound track, talked about boys. There is another picture of us from that sleepover; one my mom took in the morning. We are lying in a heap at the bottom of my bed, wrapped in several blankets, comforters and two cats. She is holding a third cat, and I’m reading a book. So much of us is caught up in this picture. Our subsequent relationship was much like that. We were spontaneous, crazy, stupid, neither of us were afraid of the same things. What I couldn’t do she’d always finish for me, and when she was afraid I’d hold her hand. By the end of our sophomore year we were two halves of a whole. Where she was blond, I was brunette. Where she excelled, I failed.
During out junior year her fiancée broke up with her, leaving her desolated and unsure… I put my life on hold for three days, holding her, promising her the impossible, and protecting her from both him, and her former friends. She wouldn’t eat, she couldn’t sleep, she wanted to die, and most of all, she loved him. Her mother and I forced her to eat, I’d stay up all night talking to her, we’d rationalize death until it passed, and she still loved him. There was nothing I could do to help her except love her, and I did. I loved her passionately as a friend. She was, my sister, my best friend, my other half. She knew things about me I’d feared to tell other people. And, I was her only friend. Over and over I heard that, until I was afraid to spend time with people outside of our happy threesome - her, my boyfriend and me. Looking back, I don’t’ know what I would have done without Cale during that first week. He could offer her the two things I was incapable of, logical, unemotional thinking, and more importantly, someone male in her life. By the end of that week she started dating Arlen, a mutual friend.
Maybe love prevented me from seeing it at first, maybe I simply was too wrapped up in my own emotions - but there is a huge gap in our relationship. We were friends, and talked everyday, but I was caught up in saying goodbye to my boyfriend of nine and a half months. After he left, and we broke up, I found an angry, depressed best friend. She was bitter, temperamental, and irrational. Something fundamental had changed in her, and although she had extraordinary moments of delight, often it was right before attacking those she loved.
I’ll never know how to describe the complete changes in her. One moment she would be laughing over something, teasing flirting, happy. And the next she would sit there crying over everything from how she hadn’t done her homework, to how I was never there for her. That, above all else was the greatest complaint - that I was never there for her.
Looking back, I have to wonder… maybe I wasn’t. My life had taken on a confusing twist of it’s own. My own anger at my parents separation, my own depression turned inwards until the only one who knew I cut myself at night was me, the only ones who knew I’d stopped doing homework were my teachers. I was the only one who knew I was fighting the increasingly hard battle for my life. Like her, I could have moments of happiness, and I wouldn’t say I was unhappy. But I was preoccupied with my own made-up world wrapped around me to protect.
Actually, I don’t remember my own emotions during that fall, what I remember are her emotions. I remember feeling how unhappy, how happy, how disappointed, and how scared she was. At some point that separation between the two of us disappeared. Often it felt like I had to be the stronger half of us - what I couldn’t do for myself I did for her on a regular basis. Any time I was confronted with what was really going on in my life, the lies of “yes, I’m doing alright” I wove around myself, the deception from my parents: she was there for me to drown myself in. She was there with a constant need, and I could push my own concerns to the side and ignore them a little longer on the excuse that, “she needs me.” I comforted her, promised her things would be better, I’d stay up late at night talking her out of stupid things, and again, I’d protect her. But it was never enough; I was never enough. She never actually wanted me - she wanted Chris, she wanted Arlen, she wanted Reid, she wanted Aka, she even wanted Cale and Philipp - those were the ones she wanted comfort, love and cheer from.
Often it felt like I was leading a secret life away from her, it was led on KDX chats where I met her boyfriend to laugh and joke, it was led in the halls of Dartmouth where we would all meet to talk. Never once did I need something more than simple companionship from any of them. We understood things between each other - and enjoyed some of the same things. My secret life was conducted with the people she cast off, we banned together in silent defense. From these people I started dating one. It was nothing serious; I still loved Cale my ex-boyfriend. But he made me laugh, and I needed that more than anything. She attacked me the next morning, not forgiving me for something I didn’t understand at the time. How to explain that understanding for her that I was simply “her” in the world. Anything I was had to fit with what she wanted for me, what she could control about me - and she didn’t want Jimmy in my life. That day, she began one of her many phrases, “I’ve lost respect with you.” And she stopped talking to me.
Things fell apart for me. My next memory of her is one of the few times she helped me. She helped to save my life, and for that I’ll ever be thankful. But it wasn’t until that night when I played Monopoly with Aaron that I stopped being an outsider, and became part of the “her” again. She needed me simply because I was willing to force her, to take control of her, and her emotions. It took me a long time to realize, often what she simply wanted was for someone to take control of her- I (and later other people) was her safety net between death. If she hadn’t known I would do anything to prevent her from killing herself, she might not have stood there at the edge for so long. But because I was there, every single time, no matter how much things seemed wrong between us, pulling her back - but what did I pull her back to? It took me a long time, and a book to realize that I wasn’t helping her, I was letting her continue in a deadly game of Russian roulette where she believed I’d always be there with my hand between her and the bullet.
Somewhere in the middle of the evening Aaron and I disagreed on something, laughingly fighting we got online for the first time that night, trying to find the answer to our question. She was online. As a joke, Aaron said something to her… teasing her about what had happened that day between her and Espen. The cold, terse response told me that something was seriously wrong. Worried, I tried to break through her walls of closed anger and depression. Asking her what was wrong she refused to answer. Finally Aaron went home earlier than we had planned in hopes that I could deal with her… another casualty of our relationship I simply accepted it as fact. Even the first time Aaron and I had spent together two weeks earlier, a game of monopoly, was ended early because she was not responding to phone calls, and pleas from mutual friends for her safety. I spent that night with her, holding her hand and trying to break the depression by simply being there with her; something she often had trouble with - if people weren’t there with her, then they were against her. As a friend once said, “Alicia sees people in two groups, her, and the rest of the world.” That day, and for a long time after, I was simply “her”.
After Aaron left, she spent two hours yelling at me; telling me that I was self-centered, that I needed to be there for her, that she was going to kill herself. In the end what was most impressed on me was that it would be my fault for not being available for her to talk to. For a very long time I had that conversation, and many others, recorded electronically on my computer. In fact, I had a whole folder labeled, “Conversations with Alicia”. Much like an iron chain, it sat there holding me down to the reality of every inadequacy I possessed. Throwing it out this summer was the greatest gift I gave myself simply because I let go of all the pain.
I have two pictures from four years ago; we were freshman in high school. In one of them she is standing against my door, turned slightly, laughing. She is wearing a black tank top, white button up shirt, and a skirt of mine. We had spent the night dressing each other in my clothing… We watched Coyote Ugly that night, danced around the house to the sound track, talked about boys. There is another picture of us from that sleepover; one my mom took in the morning. We are lying in a heap at the bottom of my bed, wrapped in several blankets, comforters and two cats. She is holding a third cat, and I’m reading a book. So much of us is caught up in this picture. Our subsequent relationship was much like that. We were spontaneous, crazy, stupid, neither of us were afraid of the same things. What I couldn’t do she’d always finish for me, and when she was afraid I’d hold her hand. By the end of our sophomore year we were two halves of a whole. Where she was blond, I was brunette. Where she excelled, I failed.
During out junior year her fiancée broke up with her, leaving her desolated and unsure… I put my life on hold for three days, holding her, promising her the impossible, and protecting her from both him, and her former friends. She wouldn’t eat, she couldn’t sleep, she wanted to die, and most of all, she loved him. Her mother and I forced her to eat, I’d stay up all night talking to her, we’d rationalize death until it passed, and she still loved him. There was nothing I could do to help her except love her, and I did. I loved her passionately as a friend. She was, my sister, my best friend, my other half. She knew things about me I’d feared to tell other people. And, I was her only friend. Over and over I heard that, until I was afraid to spend time with people outside of our happy threesome - her, my boyfriend and me. Looking back, I don’t’ know what I would have done without Cale during that first week. He could offer her the two things I was incapable of, logical, unemotional thinking, and more importantly, someone male in her life. By the end of that week she started dating Arlen, a mutual friend.
Maybe love prevented me from seeing it at first, maybe I simply was too wrapped up in my own emotions - but there is a huge gap in our relationship. We were friends, and talked everyday, but I was caught up in saying goodbye to my boyfriend of nine and a half months. After he left, and we broke up, I found an angry, depressed best friend. She was bitter, temperamental, and irrational. Something fundamental had changed in her, and although she had extraordinary moments of delight, often it was right before attacking those she loved.
I’ll never know how to describe the complete changes in her. One moment she would be laughing over something, teasing flirting, happy. And the next she would sit there crying over everything from how she hadn’t done her homework, to how I was never there for her. That, above all else was the greatest complaint - that I was never there for her.
Looking back, I have to wonder… maybe I wasn’t. My life had taken on a confusing twist of it’s own. My own anger at my parents separation, my own depression turned inwards until the only one who knew I cut myself at night was me, the only ones who knew I’d stopped doing homework were my teachers. I was the only one who knew I was fighting the increasingly hard battle for my life. Like her, I could have moments of happiness, and I wouldn’t say I was unhappy. But I was preoccupied with my own made-up world wrapped around me to protect.
Actually, I don’t remember my own emotions during that fall, what I remember are her emotions. I remember feeling how unhappy, how happy, how disappointed, and how scared she was. At some point that separation between the two of us disappeared. Often it felt like I had to be the stronger half of us - what I couldn’t do for myself I did for her on a regular basis. Any time I was confronted with what was really going on in my life, the lies of “yes, I’m doing alright” I wove around myself, the deception from my parents: she was there for me to drown myself in. She was there with a constant need, and I could push my own concerns to the side and ignore them a little longer on the excuse that, “she needs me.” I comforted her, promised her things would be better, I’d stay up late at night talking her out of stupid things, and again, I’d protect her. But it was never enough; I was never enough. She never actually wanted me - she wanted Chris, she wanted Arlen, she wanted Reid, she wanted Aka, she even wanted Cale and Philipp - those were the ones she wanted comfort, love and cheer from.
Often it felt like I was leading a secret life away from her, it was led on KDX chats where I met her boyfriend to laugh and joke, it was led in the halls of Dartmouth where we would all meet to talk. Never once did I need something more than simple companionship from any of them. We understood things between each other - and enjoyed some of the same things. My secret life was conducted with the people she cast off, we banned together in silent defense. From these people I started dating one. It was nothing serious; I still loved Cale my ex-boyfriend. But he made me laugh, and I needed that more than anything. She attacked me the next morning, not forgiving me for something I didn’t understand at the time. How to explain that understanding for her that I was simply “her” in the world. Anything I was had to fit with what she wanted for me, what she could control about me - and she didn’t want Jimmy in my life. That day, she began one of her many phrases, “I’ve lost respect with you.” And she stopped talking to me.
Things fell apart for me. My next memory of her is one of the few times she helped me. She helped to save my life, and for that I’ll ever be thankful. But it wasn’t until that night when I played Monopoly with Aaron that I stopped being an outsider, and became part of the “her” again. She needed me simply because I was willing to force her, to take control of her, and her emotions. It took me a long time to realize, often what she simply wanted was for someone to take control of her- I (and later other people) was her safety net between death. If she hadn’t known I would do anything to prevent her from killing herself, she might not have stood there at the edge for so long. But because I was there, every single time, no matter how much things seemed wrong between us, pulling her back - but what did I pull her back to? It took me a long time, and a book to realize that I wasn’t helping her, I was letting her continue in a deadly game of Russian roulette where she believed I’d always be there with my hand between her and the bullet.