First things first here in the UK its exam season.
So my friend had an exam today: Biology and considering he wants to study medicine – well psychology, it was really important for him to do well. I asked him yesterday if he felt prepared for it and he said he “barely knew any of the content” – but he always says that and goes on to get 90% on his papers and so I pushed the comment aside.
After his exam today I asked him how he thought it went and he said “SHIT”. Again its something he always says when he finishes exams and so I began to push it aside but then I realised that when I received his message I sent one back – that was about 4hrs ago and I haven’t gotten a response. I personally am unable to believe that it has gone as badly as he makes out it did.
However I do know that he is in a very bad place and that something like this could be what it takes, to knock him over I mean – the possibility that he has failed.
Ignoring me – he’s done it before and then when I asked about it he said he had done it for my own good, out of kindness so that when he left this world, I wouldn’t be as emotionally attached. Every time I receive silence I’m absolutely terrified that he is planning to “disappear” and that, ‘that’s that’.
In movies when a character is in a bad place, one of the supporting actors will almost always just randomly turn up at their house to check on them, formulating some crap story as to why they are there, so it doesn’t look as though they are snooping. I would love to do that, turn up at his house and just sit with him, at least that way I would know for sure that for a couple of hours he wasn’t cutting or crying. That somebody who cared was there.
I am a very passive person, but I know that when people ask me questions about how I’m feeling and I know there is an ulterior motive, I feel claustrophobic, I go silent and I don’t talk. Ultimately I just get angry.
I know for a fact that if he took it badly he would freak out.
He doesn’t really like to acknowledge the fact that people do care. He doesn’t understand why they do and takes it badly – people wasting their time on a hopeless case; they could focus their time on somebody with a possible cure, if he wasn’t around – or so he thinks.
It breaks my heart, that all the things I know would create a glint of light, are those he just wont do because he is a smart guy – too smart for his own good in fact: if he suspects I am trying to save him from himself he wont engage.
There’s another thing.
I wish there was a way to stop the nightmares. He hasn’t slept a full night in over a year because he is just so scared – of what I have no idea. Maybe its the dark. Or the possibility of failure. Or an overactive mind (he is scared of his mind – the dark corners and what hides in them). Then again maybe its the fear of what the next day will hold, what it will bring with it. I guess in a way “fear of the next day” holds all of those elements – failure, the mind, the dark. But sometimes I wonder if its not so much the fear of failure as the fear of actually succeeding.
You know when he told me about the nightmares I actually thought about buying a “Dream-Catcher” for him?
I was going to drop it off on his front porch and if he asked any questions I would tell him that it would serve as a symbol of his ability to overcome the bad. Its silly I know, but that’s just how desperate I have become. Clutching at short straws has become my life – looking for solutions a job.
He started writing morbid death poetry this week…
We barely talk in words anymore instead we talk in lyrics or rather songs: He said listen to “Now and Then” by We are the Ocean and it made me sob. I told him to listen to “Song for a Friend” and “Who’s thinking about you now” by Jason Mraz and got no response – which believe it or not means something. Some how the songs speak better than we ever could…
A couple of weeks he presented me with a gem of knowledge, a life saver, a light. He said he had always imagined himself with children, he had always thought that he was going to be a father and pictured himself with a son. That comment alone gave me more hope than anyone can ever imagine…