The tunnel

I met a friend of mine about eight months ago.  Prior to that I had no real friends, no one I could talk to.  I was 27 years old with no girlfriend, no wife, no kids, no life, really.  And yes, I was kinda suicidal back then too, but only in the vaguest way.  I had the thoughts, but never took any real action.  I was just on auto-pilot, living life day-by-day.  My life consisted of going to work, coming home, playing video games (not even social multi-player ones!) and then sleeping.  The most boring, staid, ridiculously isolating life you could imagine and I hated it.  Then Samantha came along.

Samantha was great.  She was everything I needed in a friend.  I met her on a writer’s RPG website named Mizahar, where we first encountered one another because she posted in my thread.  Our characters got along famously almost instantly, and we started to chat on the site’s chat room.  And that became a daily thing, so we exchanged Skype numbers and started talking to each other.  Then we exchanged phone numbers and texted each other.  She was what I needed – somebody who’d text me during the day asking how I was doing.  Little things, like sending heart symbols <3, or *nuzzles*, or things like that, to let me know that she cared.  And I’d tell her about my horrible job, and she’d tell me about her husband and son and work and I got to know her over the last few months.

We became such good friends that I even went to see her at her home.  It was a fair distance and cost quite a bit but I still don’t regret doing it.  That was the highlight of our friendship.  The highest point.  But then the fights started.

It was always something so stupid that started the fight.  Like, we played a video game together (that she introduced me to), called League of Legends.  You can look it up, but basically it’s this game where there’s “champions” that you can play as, and your friends can too, and then a bunch of you go into the game against another bunch of players and you kill each other.  The details don’t matter, but one of the fights (and the reason I’m feeling suicidal right now), was over a champion.  In a goddamn video game!  How dumb is that?!  Granted it wasn’t that fight which actually resulted in what happened, but it was the beginning of the end.

Now in the past, we’d had fights before.  Over similarly stupid minor things.  Admittedly, she was my only friend, which by default made her my best friend but truthfully even if I had other friends she would still have been my best friend because she displayed genuine concern about my life and how it was going.  Mizahar and League of Legends gradually dropped in importance for me – originally I was afraid that she’d quit one or the other and I’d have no one to write/play with, but after only a few months I was more worried that I wouldn’t have my caring friend to help me through difficult times anymore.

So yes, I had a dependency problem.  I was too emotionally attached to her.  So when we had our fights and she asked for space, I didn’t give it to her.  I was too terrified that she’d leave, that she’d never come back if I left her alone, so I pinged her, and texted her, and bugged her.  Which ironically only made things worse.  Now I’ll be the first to admit, that’s my cross to bear.  My dependency issues is something I need to fix, and deal with, and seek professional help about.

Now when the arguments got really bad, and she started saying things like, “I’m done!” and “Don’t ever talk to me again!” I got really, really scared.  To the point that I could feel the depression and despair creep up and I would start feeling suicidal.  The old bad habits crawling out of the woodwork like ants from a hill.  And I couldn’t help myself.  I’d tell her I would commit suicide, and she’d call me, and she’d scream at me, but at least she was talking to me.  But that upset her too.  She said that every time I did so, she pulled further away, which just got me more neurotic and needy.  And that began a vicious cycle that I didn’t know how to stop.

Was I being emotionally abusive and manipulative with this, as she kept insisting I was?  I… I don’t know.  Maybe I was.  I just don’t know anymore.  I do know this.  And if you’re reading this, chances are you’ve been through this before, so you know that these feelings are real.  Every suicide threat needs to be taken seriously, because let’s face it, you and I both know that we suicidal people, we really do mean it every time we say it.  Of course that doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll go through with it… and obviously so far none of us have or we wouldn’t be here talking about it, but still, that doesn’t make our feelings any less true or real.

If I had a friend I was as close to as I was to Samantha, and he or she was suicidal, and I was flipping mad at him or her, I’d still drop everything, put aside my anger, and help them in any way I could if I found out they were feeling like hurting themselves.  Especially if I knew it was my anger that was causing it in the first place.  Maybe Samantha couldn’t, because she’s never been there.  But I could, because I know first-hand what it’s like.  I’m feeling it right the hell now, so I definitely know what it’s like.  And I’d do it every single time.  I’d never throw up my hands and surrender just because it happens “too often”.  And I’d never pull away with each “threat”; if anything I’d get closer, because I’d want to help a dear friend stay in this world with me.

But with her… so after the fight regarding the champion in League of Legends, I did something ridiculously stupid.  And I’ll own up to how dumb it was for me to do that.  I called her really early in the morning, mainly just to… you know what I’m not even sure what the hell I was thinking at the time.  Why did I do that?  It was ridiculously dumb.  And she called me out on it, rightly so, saying, “God could you be more like a stalker?  I wasn’t even awake yet.”  She had every right to call me out there.  I’d have done the same.  A few hours later I texted her, basically to apologize.  I don’t even remember how that conversation escalated, but it did.  It got so bad, she started accusing me of stuff, and I accused her of taking my words out of context.  That was when she said, “coming from the master of manipulation himself, huh?!  Fine!  I’m blocking you!”  And that’s exactly what she did.

And that was it.  The end, it seemed.  She didn’t block text messages, not because she didn’t want to but because at the time she didn’t know how to… yet.  I’d never felt despair like I felt at that moment.  All the other times I’d fought with her didn’t even compare to that moment.  All the other times was my neurotic fear of losing her that made me want to be suicidal, but if I’d been rational I’d realized that it was silly – even though she hated that I seemed to always “threaten” her with this, she came back anyway.  But this time… this time was different.  This time she was taking a step she’d never taken before, and actually blocked me.  And I panicked, as I’m sure you could understand.  But for once, she did not come to help.  Oh she called, but unlike before when her calls were lengthy and eventually talked me out of doing anything, this time it was short.  And the last verbal words I ever heard from her was, “I hope you burn in hell!”

God… I didn’t want that to be the last thing I ever heard from a friend that was so close I almost saw her as family.  But it was.  And at that moment… I grabbed a gallon of bleach.  And I sat there, with the cap open, shaking like a leaf.  My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it through my ears.  My head was swimming so much I could barely see.  I couldn’t breathe… everything was spinning.  I wanted to just end.  I felt like my whole life was crashing down around me.

Was I too emotionally attached to Samantha?  Unhealthily so even?  Quite possibly.  I don’t make friends easily.  When I make them, I treasure them immensely because they provide emotional support that I kinda sorta need to stay alive.  And so I get attached, maybe overly so, to the few friends I do make.  And perhaps that attachment comes across as needy, or clingy, or stalkerish.  It’s something I’m aware of, and want to work on, but in a certain way it’s also something I can’t really change.  I need that kind of connection with someone to be stable.  And in the last few years, Samantha was quite literally all I had.  So when she ripped that away from me…

So yeah.  There I was, in front of that bleach, about to drink it.  I didn’t, of course.  I’d be in the ER right now if I had.  But I managed to get over it, because I called the National Suicide Prevention Hotline (ironically suggested by Samantha herself the first time this happened), and they talked me down.  Said to give Samantha time, she might come back.  So I waited.  My emotions were a roller-coaster.  Sometimes I was almost normal, convinced that because I’m blocked, I’m now giving her the space she has asked for so many times, so maybe she really would come back.  And then I’d go downhill, into despair, thinking she’d never return.

Then, two days later, I got a private message from her on the writing website we met on.  And my rollercoaster jumped the tracks and plummeted into the abyss.  Because she was telling me she was done, and that it was the last I’d hear from her, and don’t bother replying because she wouldn’t reply or read.  It was the last lifeline I had, and it was gone, and all hope seemed lost.  I was in a dark tunnel, and I thought I saw a light.  But it was a mirage.  There was no light.  Just darkness all around me.

That was yesterday.

I nearly drank that bleach again.  The idea had never seemed so good before.  What was the point of going on?  She was the light in my life.  The one person that cared.  Maybe it’s true.  Maybe I attached too much to her, more than she could bear.  She had her own suite of problems.  A father who had a stroke, a husband who had a heart problem, a son who just hit his terrible twos, and a job that was stacking more and more pressure on her back.  And now she had to deal with a neurotic, needy, suicidal friend too.  I suppose logically, I can see how I may have overburdened her emotionally, but I also couldn’t help myself.  I’d grown so attached, and so needing of the support she gave, that I wasn’t sure I could survive without it.

I had to call the Suicide lifeline.  Twice.  Once when she sent her first message, and they assured me it didn’t sound final, just angry.  But then she sent the second.  The one that didn’t just sound final, it was final.  And that was when I was at my worst.  I almost didn’t call.  I almost just drank the damn stuff, because I knew if I called they’d probably talk me out of it and at that moment I wasn’t sure I wanted to be talked out of it.  But I did, in the end.  And perhaps it was a good thing.  We’ll have to see, I still don’t see any light at the end of this tunnel.

So now I’m just trudging down this tunnel, looking for any light.  One foot in front of the other.  Just trying to make it day by day, knowing that I’ll never get another text from her asking how was my day going.  Or what was up with me.  Or would I like to play a game of League with her, or discuss plotlines for the writing site.  All of that, which kept me stable, and happy, is gone now, and I’m left with the shattered pieces of my broken life lying around me.  And I have to somehow make it work.

I don’t know how.  Where do I go from here?  I don’t make friends easily.  It’s part of my problem, and why I grow so attached.  When I had hope that she might come back, I could muscle through any number of days because I could have something to look forward to.  The day when we’d talk again, and everything would go back to normal.  But now normal’s become topsey-turvy.  And I don’t know what to think anymore.  The guy on the hotline convinced me to flush the bleach.  So I did.  Kinda regretting it now.  Because I don’t even have a means to end it all, not unless I was truly desperate enough that I’d hang myself or something.  Could I get that bad?  Not sure.  I’m making it through today… barely.  But what about tomorrow?  Or the day after?  Or the one after that?

Is there even an end to this tunnel?