Hello, I’m still here.

A lot has happened. Nothing has happened. I am still here. I was okay. I was not okay. I did good things. I did bad things.

A new face again, in my therapist’s chair. And the story is told again, who what where when why how. The book is translucent and the stories are tinted shadows. But I cry all the same.

A new form of therapy too. Paints, sand, clay, tears, words, fear. Raw, sticky, messy. Good.

Back at home, worse. Crash. Bang. Slam. Wrong wrong wrong. Poor Mummy. I’m not really there.

Still hurts. Still scared. Still nothing.

It’s probably my doing. I push people away and isolate myself. We speak less. We meet less. And when we do, it’s all superficial. Sometimes I wish I could talk about the same things they do - a job, a partner, a house. But there’s nothing in my days except pathetically salty or bloody battles that always just bring one more aching day. And they used to cautiously listen, if ever I blurt out my battle tales. But maybe now we’re all weary. And they have their own proper wars. So we go on dancing this awful tango, where they move and I freeze, they turn and I fall. I’m sitting across them and I feel a galaxy between us. I try to speak but my voice and love are lost in the stars.

I am the toxic friend.

I am the one that never calls, the one that bleeds negativity, the one that does nothing but apologises when friends become acquaintances because patience turns to impatience.

People ask me what time I wake, and respond with awe when I say whenever. They don’t know that I stay in bed all day binge-watching cartoons to escape the vicious hum that takes over when I’m not distracted. They ask what I’m doing in life, and respond with envy when I, to avoid explaining, say I’m taking a break. They don’t see me struggling to step out of the house to do simple errands. They don’t see me panicking when I get a phone call or a knock at the door. I hear the voice of my first psychologist in my head, saying the depression isn’t me. But then I hear the voice of my reason inside as well, rebuking that I’m just a lazy, whiny, self-absorbed 26-year-old wastrel who refuses to grow up.

And I am so convinced, as I have always been since 14 years ago, that while people light up the room with their smile, their laughter, their personality, I take the light away with my presence and suck the living soul out of anyone that has the misfortune of crossing my path. Sometimes I think about the ones who remain in my life and I wonder why they’re still there. Family, they can’t really escape me. My few best friends, we meet just once a fortnight at best and I don’t speak about my troubled feelings and thoughts anymore, and I guess that’s why they have little reason to leave now. And those I’ve barely managed to keep in my life, they’re really better off without an inconsistent ghost in their life.

You see those articles about toxic people in your life, how you should remove them or stay away from them, and infuse your life with positivity so you can succeed. I always read these articles and do a mental check off of all the toxic behaviours I exhibit, like a twisted game to reassure myself of my decrepitude and my self-isolation. And sometimes at the end I catch a sad part of myself thinking, what pushes ‘a troubled friend’ over the edge into ‘a toxic person’? How long before even my closest friends see how much better off they would be without my poisonous being? Will my family abandon me too? How far am I going to let myself fall into the abyss? Will I ever stop feeling like this? Is there no escape from me?

And that voice of reason inside continues to chuckle in the dark.

It almost seems I can never talk to others about my feelings anymore. All I hear is
“You’ve got to let go of the anger”
“You’ve got to forgive”
“No one can hurt you unless you let them”
“You have to decide to ignore all the negativity”
“Stop making excuses”
When all I wanted was a listening ear and a shoulder to cry on. I can’t talk about a problem without getting solutions thrown into my face. But why, why does everything have to be solved as quickly as possible? Why does nobody tell me it’s okay to grieve, and it’s okay to go at my own pace? Why does nobody just hold me and wait with me through the storm? When I say “I can’t” and they say “but you can”, when they show me their scars and tell me their stories to tell me “you’re not the only one, everyone goes through stuff”, when they ask me questions then pick apart my answers and call them “excuses”, all it accomplishes is to add on to the shame, the guilt, the anger, and the self loathing. And even that is my fault, isn’t it? Because “no one can make me feel bad unless I let them”. So I have no one to blame but myself, no one to hate but myself, everything happened and effected me the way it did because of me. It’s me, it’s always me. And I am after all, a whiny and ungrateful brat with invalid and insignificant problems that aren’t even as bad as the problems of anyone else so I should really quit whining, suck it up, stop making excuses, and do something. Because it’s so easy, so possible, so normal.