Post by sand dollar on Aug 22, 2017 21:52:02 GMT -5
tw depression, anxiety, and suicide
one of my closest online friends & bandmate has severe depression and suffers from anxiety. she's been hospitalized for her depression / suicidal thoughts at least once within the past year.
we mainly communicate via kik. sometimes she doesn't reply for weeks at a time and has apologized for it, saying she often just lacks the energy. i understand & tell her so whenever that comes up, telling her i care for her and never feel upset that she doesn't respond, i just worry for her welfare.
she hadn't messaged me in several weeks, so this weekend i DMed her irl best friend (who knows she has mental health issues) asking if they knew how she was doing. her friend said that she was fine (as far as they knew) and had lost her phone charger, but they were going on vacation together this week.
i was still worried. i send her little "i hope you're doing alright" texts sometimes, just to let her know i'm still here for her and thinking about her
this morning at school i got a text from her telling me that she almost killed herself last night and felt like she was "drowning".
me, not being a mental health professional, just sent her some texts letting her know i cared about her and that i understand life might be painful but things can get better and that i love her and urging her to please get help if she can sense that she's feeling bad.
she lives in MD and i live in CA with no way to contact her parents or no knowledge of her address, so immediately after i read her text i sent a message to her irl best friend through Instagram letting her know that she had almost killed herself last night so that they could contact her parents or someone to help bc they can actually physically be there for her and help unlike me. so they replied thanking me and said they'd text her parents to let them know
so i think i've done all i can but i just feel so helpless. i love her so much and i don't know what she's going through and i can't bear the thought of her being in so much pain that she wants to end her life. she doesn't see what a beautiful human being she is and i feel like i never know what to say because i'm just a lonely quiet kid her age struggling w some dark stuff of my own
she and her friend have always told me that they're thankful for the band we've started together because our music is the one big positive thing in her life that keeps her going but i just worry that it isn't enough and i just want her to be able to be at peace in life. in 2-3 years we'll be able to move out, maybe make music together, and do what makes us happy but i don't think she feels like she can endure her current situation for that long. at the same time, i worry that in putting so much hope in our music dream that if it somehow doesn't work her life will seem even less appealing to her. her parents are divorced and i don't think she's in physical danger at home but her mom doesn't seem to take her mental illness seriously / help her and she's said her mom might even be dealing with depression as well. she's home schooled now because of her depression (or so i last heard) but i don't know how much supervision she has. im so worried for her and idk what to do because it's entirely out of my hands but i wish i could help in some way
in a skype call one time i remember her saying how she barely got sleep like she was joking about how she went a while just eating cheerios at ungodly hours of the morning and we laughed about it but i feel so dumb now like im realizing that all these things she mentioned were probably just symptoms of her depression and im like a bad friend for not seeing it or she's said before that she feels like a hamster in a perpetual circle trying to stay inside a hamster wheel or something and i didn't really see it as suicidal thoughts so i didn't say anything but im so glad she told me she was considering suicide and that i told someone but i still feel so stupid oh my god i've felt like crying at school all day i want to fly there and hug her
one of my closest online friends & bandmate has severe depression and suffers from anxiety. she's been hospitalized for her depression / suicidal thoughts at least once within the past year.
we mainly communicate via kik. sometimes she doesn't reply for weeks at a time and has apologized for it, saying she often just lacks the energy. i understand & tell her so whenever that comes up, telling her i care for her and never feel upset that she doesn't respond, i just worry for her welfare.
she hadn't messaged me in several weeks, so this weekend i DMed her irl best friend (who knows she has mental health issues) asking if they knew how she was doing. her friend said that she was fine (as far as they knew) and had lost her phone charger, but they were going on vacation together this week.
i was still worried. i send her little "i hope you're doing alright" texts sometimes, just to let her know i'm still here for her and thinking about her
this morning at school i got a text from her telling me that she almost killed herself last night and felt like she was "drowning".
me, not being a mental health professional, just sent her some texts letting her know i cared about her and that i understand life might be painful but things can get better and that i love her and urging her to please get help if she can sense that she's feeling bad.
she lives in MD and i live in CA with no way to contact her parents or no knowledge of her address, so immediately after i read her text i sent a message to her irl best friend through Instagram letting her know that she had almost killed herself last night so that they could contact her parents or someone to help bc they can actually physically be there for her and help unlike me. so they replied thanking me and said they'd text her parents to let them know
so i think i've done all i can but i just feel so helpless. i love her so much and i don't know what she's going through and i can't bear the thought of her being in so much pain that she wants to end her life. she doesn't see what a beautiful human being she is and i feel like i never know what to say because i'm just a lonely quiet kid her age struggling w some dark stuff of my own
she and her friend have always told me that they're thankful for the band we've started together because our music is the one big positive thing in her life that keeps her going but i just worry that it isn't enough and i just want her to be able to be at peace in life. in 2-3 years we'll be able to move out, maybe make music together, and do what makes us happy but i don't think she feels like she can endure her current situation for that long. at the same time, i worry that in putting so much hope in our music dream that if it somehow doesn't work her life will seem even less appealing to her. her parents are divorced and i don't think she's in physical danger at home but her mom doesn't seem to take her mental illness seriously / help her and she's said her mom might even be dealing with depression as well. she's home schooled now because of her depression (or so i last heard) but i don't know how much supervision she has. im so worried for her and idk what to do because it's entirely out of my hands but i wish i could help in some way
in a skype call one time i remember her saying how she barely got sleep like she was joking about how she went a while just eating cheerios at ungodly hours of the morning and we laughed about it but i feel so dumb now like im realizing that all these things she mentioned were probably just symptoms of her depression and im like a bad friend for not seeing it or she's said before that she feels like a hamster in a perpetual circle trying to stay inside a hamster wheel or something and i didn't really see it as suicidal thoughts so i didn't say anything but im so glad she told me she was considering suicide and that i told someone but i still feel so stupid oh my god i've felt like crying at school all day i want to fly there and hug her