In someone else's shoes

I feel like I am getting sick - silly weather! And after all the vitamins. Sigh.

Anyway that is not what I wanted to talk about. So before I start rambling (who me?) lets get on with it:

Yesterday I went and visited a sick friend during my lunch break. We studied together and she is immensely immensely clever and an over achiever of note. It was back in the days where I would never ever mention I was on anti depressants and I didn't really ask/talk about it with other people. Still I think I felt that she was a kindred soul.

And I was (sadly) right. We lost contact after undergrad and the next time I saw her was in 2009 when I was supposed to be handing my MSc. but had taken an extention because of a mini breakdown. She was also finishing her MA but she had been hopsitalised 3 times that year and diagnosed with Bipolar disorder. You could feel the anxiety on her. She couldn't keep still.

She got a job lecturing at another African university and moved there and she loved it. No hot water or cell phone signal but it was calm and she seemed calm. In the middle of last year she moved back to be with her boyfriend (who then proposed) and things started going down hill. She was in hospital by December and was hospitalised again two weeks ago. Thanfully she is going back to lecture but that does make me worry about her- being so vulnerable and alone.

I worry about her and I care about her but at the same time I don't really know how to deal with her. The smses/phone calls and the mood swings. Sometimes she says I am a good friend, other times I don't put in any effort and it confuses me. I don't always agree with her decisions but I am not really someone that deals well with confrontation so I also don't know how to tell her. Its hurts me that she wants to die and that she has actively tried. I see the scars on her wrists and part of me wants to run away. Not because I am scared of her, not because I don't care but because I want to fix her and I can't.

This made me think of my own experiences: I have never been so sad that I would hurt myself and I don't think that I have ever been as depressed. However, I was depressed and mopey. I know that. I wanted to deal with all the anger I was feeling and so I was a lot more confrontational than usual. In essesence to be depressed is to be stuck in a bubble of your own pain and sadness and that makes you concentrate on you. Well that is how it is with me. I didn't mean to be selfish but I was. It was how I saw the world at that time.

I now wonder about my friends. The ones who said I was too self absorbed, the ones that left me, the ones that I feel betrayed by. And I wonder if they maybe felt like I do? Maybe I am no better. That would be difficult to accept because I have always felt that at least I got the 'moral highground'. They couldn't take it because I was sick. They were wrong and I was right. The victim.

But now, maybe not...maybe no one could've helped me except Brian (and 2 of my university friends). Maybe it was all too much to deal with. I don't know. Were my expectations too high? Was I that difficult to be around? My memories are blurry around the edges. I don't think my behaviour deserved their behavior but I have doubts now. It makes me a little sad because if it wasn't because they were too selfish, then maybe I overreacted. I can see how easy it would be to pull away from my friend in hospital but I choose not to. Does that make me different? I don't know but I won't judge them so harshly now. Depression is difficult to be around. And there are a lot of hard decisions to make as a friend: Do I tell her she shouldn't get married? Do I tell her she drinks too much? Do I check up on her and make sure she sees her doctor? Do I tell her that I am worried about her travelling across Zim with a dog and a kitten in a months time? I am scared that it will make her worse if I tell her. But (and this is my failing) I am scared of what she will say to me if I do.