Hey guys, it's been a while. I know every time I promise that I'm going to be better at posting more often and every time I fail to do so, This particular post was supposed to be about something completely different, but given current circumstances and situations, that subject no longer holds a space at the front of my mind, maybe it will come back up later, maybe it won't. I guess consider it a lost post.
I've never withheld any of my thoughts and feelings from you all because I want to be an example that it is okay to feel these things and that there is no shame in hiding it. On that note, I plan to be brutally honest with everything that is about to come out.
I have been struggling. And bad. I have been feeling helpless and lonely. I have been extremely stressed out and overwhelmed. I want to give up on everything. With my own mental state, my social life and academically. The simple fact of being a teenager is anything but. Add onto that other factors like depression, fear of rejection and the complexities that are my day to day life, things are not easy.
My breaking point was a few weeks ago when me and my team had to finish a Spanish assignment for the next day. Our subject was about The Poquianchis, a group of serial killer women who prostituted and murdered young girls in Mexico. It is not light reading and i am already so sensitive to everything. I remember so clearly when I started to freak out. I was starting to panic, I couldn't breath. I was crying and I told my team "I am having a panic attack, can someone else please finish this?" The only one that responded was (who I thought was) my best friend. She just told me to calm down. She didn't ask me if I was okay. She didn't ask what she could do to help. It may seem ridiculous to get upset over something like this, but I needed her and she just left me alone.
What bothered me the most afterwards was realizing that she didn't care about me the way I did for her. I gave her my all. I tried so fucking hard to be there for her because I knew about the problems she goes through at home. I am the one that found out that she self harms and offered to go with her to get help. She asked me to be her best friend after I found out and me (blind with the desperation to have a best friend again) said yes. I constantly worried about her. She had this sort of aura around her that just drew you in. I don't know if maybe I have a thing for the broken and damaged or maybe I just had so much longing to be close to someone, but I was so emotionally invested in her that i didn't realize she just kept taking and never giving anything back. I wanted her to help me fix how broken I feel.
Needless to say, after I realized the state of mind I was/am in I sat down and talked with my parents about seeing a therapist because I knew I needed help. We're still looking, but I feel better knowing I took the first step towards getting help.
I started pushing her away from me. I needed my own space away from her so I could think about myself for a while. I'm not completely sure what happened, but after I no longer felt the need to have her around, after I realized I wanted her gone from my mental space bubble, she changed. She started acting stuck up and better that the rest of us. She stopped trying to even talk to me in class. She even froze another mutual friend of ours out.
This, of course, affected the team. Everyone started fighting and she used every excuse she could to say it wasn't her fault that nothing was working and went so far as to blame it on everyone else. She tried to use being depressed as an excuse and I told her that I have diagnosed depression and didn't let that stop me from finishing my work. As if her problems at home made her superior and perfect compared to the rest of us. In my eyes, she was trying to play the victim. And, unfortunately, it worked on some of us.
I couldn't understand why she began to act this way. Why she doesn't seem to care enough to even try to fix things with me. At the same time, I know she goes through so much and no one deserves to go through what she has. But this doesn't mean she has the right to use people for her own benefit. There are so many things that I don't like about myself, but one thing I pride myself on is that I have not let my situation turn me into someone I don't want to be.
On the note of my once mutual friend with this girl. The thing is, me and this other girl weren't even really friends with each other. It was more like we just happened to both be friends with the same girl. I found out recently that my ex best friend had told this girl everything she had told me. About the abuse she faces at home and her self harming. And that apparently something I had said had upset her.
It was after thing had kind of blown over that me and this other girl had (I guess) started bonding over losing the girl as a friend. Even though she was closer to this boy in our team, she ended up getting hurt too. Sometimes it's almost like shes mourning him because they were so close and she misses him terribly. All we know is that my ex best friend must have said something to him. Of course, we aren't sure, but we don't know why else he would have stopped talking to my now friend.
In the end, I made the conscious decision to let her go. I let go of all the pain and hurt she made me feel. Of the sadness and suffering she radiated off and I let soak into me. I know it seems selfish (to stop helping someone for your own benefit), but I feel lighter. Things look brighter.
I don't regret having had her as a friend or having to let her go the way i did, because she made me learn a very important lesson that I still hadn’t fully comprehended. I learned that if someone is hurting you, even someone you really care about and they refuse to acknowledge it, you have no obligation to stick around and keep getting hurt. I tried and failed. I accept that and now, after letting that all out and putting it into writing, i can move on.
So, maybe take my experience that I have now shared with you all as a sort of imaginary permission slip to let go of toxic people in your life. I know I am not perfect and that there are probably 50 other ways I could have handled this situation, but I refuse to put myself through more than I have to. And you shouldn't have to either.
Goodbye, for now, dear friends.
And never forget, it is perfectly okay not to be okay.
This, of course, affected the team. Everyone started fighting and she used every excuse she could to say it wasn't her fault that nothing was working and went so far as to blame it on everyone else. She tried to use being depressed as an excuse and I told her that I have diagnosed depression and didn't let that stop me from finishing my work. As if her problems at home made her superior and perfect compared to the rest of us. In my eyes, she was trying to play the victim. And, unfortunately, it worked on some of us.
I couldn't understand why she began to act this way. Why she doesn't seem to care enough to even try to fix things with me. At the same time, I know she goes through so much and no one deserves to go through what she has. But this doesn't mean she has the right to use people for her own benefit. There are so many things that I don't like about myself, but one thing I pride myself on is that I have not let my situation turn me into someone I don't want to be.
On the note of my once mutual friend with this girl. The thing is, me and this other girl weren't even really friends with each other. It was more like we just happened to both be friends with the same girl. I found out recently that my ex best friend had told this girl everything she had told me. About the abuse she faces at home and her self harming. And that apparently something I had said had upset her.
It was after thing had kind of blown over that me and this other girl had (I guess) started bonding over losing the girl as a friend. Even though she was closer to this boy in our team, she ended up getting hurt too. Sometimes it's almost like shes mourning him because they were so close and she misses him terribly. All we know is that my ex best friend must have said something to him. Of course, we aren't sure, but we don't know why else he would have stopped talking to my now friend.
In the end, I made the conscious decision to let her go. I let go of all the pain and hurt she made me feel. Of the sadness and suffering she radiated off and I let soak into me. I know it seems selfish (to stop helping someone for your own benefit), but I feel lighter. Things look brighter.
I don't regret having had her as a friend or having to let her go the way i did, because she made me learn a very important lesson that I still hadn’t fully comprehended. I learned that if someone is hurting you, even someone you really care about and they refuse to acknowledge it, you have no obligation to stick around and keep getting hurt. I tried and failed. I accept that and now, after letting that all out and putting it into writing, i can move on.
So, maybe take my experience that I have now shared with you all as a sort of imaginary permission slip to let go of toxic people in your life. I know I am not perfect and that there are probably 50 other ways I could have handled this situation, but I refuse to put myself through more than I have to. And you shouldn't have to either.
Goodbye, for now, dear friends.
And never forget, it is perfectly okay not to be okay.
