letter to G. The words I never told you.
i dont exactly hate myself
Honestly for the most part, iām going through the motions outwardly of living a normal. I seem normal. I do normal things. Everyday life.
but every now and then iāll catch myself living normallyā or rather, She catches me living normally.
my younger self.
Sometimes iāll be in the middle of washing dishes, or cooking, or playing video games, whatever. And iāll just really thinking about myself. My current self. My current situation, and how iām feeling in that moment.
normal. Basicallyā¦. Completely fine.
like I wasnāt ready to end myself four, five years ago over how much anxiety I felt.
I remember that day. March 15th, 2021. Clearly.
it was sunny. Mom was cooking something downstairs and there I was in my room, on that sunny spring day, sitting on my bed and texting you, begging you like I was begging for my own life to be spared, not to run away with that bitch.
begging you not to do it. Not to get lost. Not to run away. You using her birthday party as an excuse to escape together, and she almost convinced you to.
I remember how badly I shook as the voices that echoed downstairs continued to chatter. Occasional laughter. Light speech. The sound of pans sizzling and the exhaust fan running sounding faintly downstairs.
shaking. the anxiety hurt so much I could hardly move. My limbs weighed of lead. I was so, so young, and maybe, just maybe, if itās even possible, I couldāve died that day just from the anxiety. That soul-sinking desperation for your life because I was terrified youād either kill your self or get killed trying to run away. I was so terrified. I canāt even begin to articulate just how in shambles I was.
my chest hurt so much. The anxiety wasnāt just uncomfortable; it hurt. It hurt from the second I woke to the moment I fell asleep. For months. Years. But that day will forever stick with me.
I can never forget just what I felt. Can anxiety kill a person? My heart felt like it might fail me. I was so young, and I hardly ate, and the anxiety compressed me so much that I could barely even move. But yet even with my shaking fingers I texted you so much begging you not to do it. Begging you. I was so terrified. Terrified youād leave. Terrified youād die, terrified of thinking of you missing poster, terrified of thinking of the sullen looks on my parents faces and the anxiousness in yoursā.
that was long before I ended up in your shoes after you left them for me.
long before you recovered from your depression at the cost of mine.
before I understood why you wanted to do it.
those were long months. Months of hardly being able to move. Months of my heart aching so much, and yet feeling so inconsolably numb. Alone. Fighting for your life while I forsook myself. I really did love you, by the way. I look back on it now, and I realize that you really mustāve been precious to me in order for me to put myself through that hell, and grit my teeth and tank it all completely alone. No shoulder of my own to lean on because I was the one you were supposed to lean on.
I think one of my better moments through it all, even though I can hardly remember it and how we got there, was that time you and I were sitting down on my bed that evening. We were both crying for some reason. But you held my hand and rested your head on my shoulder, and I remember feeling that hole in my heart feeling just a little less gaping when you did that.
I felt like maybe I really was helping. Maybe you did appreciate me, and I was proving myself to be a valuable, helpful person to you.
I think we were crying because my mom was asking us both a bit more about that bitch and why she (lied) wanted to kill herself. Depression sure was popular for attention seeking to her and in turn, it made us both even worse.
I wonder. Were you faking it too? I didnāt think you were. Maybe you werenāt. I donāt exactly know anymore. Maybe things were hard, but I wonder just to what extent.
did you have anxiety? Could you still walk? Were you lonely at all?
I remember another instance. Another evening where iād barely eaten anything that day too. I was probably a skeleton, and I got on my hands and knees to pick up the vacuum.
No one was there, but they were near me, you know?
I just remember feeling so weak. Like I wouldnāt be able to move. Like Iād collapse. So I just sat there for a minute. Listening to the sounds of the life around me as everyone else went about their lives, completely fine. Completely unaware of the fact that their little girl, their little sister, was so weak she could hardly even bring herself to crawl.
I canāt believe I lived through that.
I canāt believe I live my life nowadays without anxiety. Barely any.
I just canāt believe it.
how could anyone her age go through that? Itās just not fair. Itās not fair. She was too young to be thinking about things like that. Saving someoneās life. Going above and beyond, doing everything she possibly could to make sure her friend wouldnāt die, because the fear was so real. The thought of not having her friend exist in her life anymore was too debilitating.
she was so strong. Stronger than I am now. I canāt believe she made it through years of that. Months of the worst, and the things that followed.
she was so fucking strong. That frail, skeletal girl with willpower so strong, she still got up and picked up that fucking vacuum. She still got out of her bed and came downstairs after trying to convince her friend not to run away. She still came downstairs. She walked. She barely talked, but she still did. She did what she fucking could and she smiled to keep it all together.
to make sure it wasnāt all for nothing.
she got up that fucking day. She got up the day after that too. She woke up with so much anxiety she could hardly breathe sometimes, but she kept fucking going.
she was such a strong girl. No one knew it at the time, but she didnāt need anyone to know it. She didnāt want anyone to know it. In the end, as long as her friend was alive, she would do anything. She would stay as strong as possible so she could carry the weight of another personās life.
as long as you were still alive, sheād keep going.
sometimes I wonder where that strength went. Sometimes I wonder if I should be proud of my younger self or pity her.
she was so pathetic. Desperate. Weak. Yet had a willpower like none other.
thatās why I catch myself these days. Living daily life normally, like the people at the time who were so unaware of my struggles. Completely fine. And then the shadow of my younger self lingers at the edge of my mind.
āFive years ago, you were so weak with anxiety you could hardly move, and yet you didnāt cry. You couldnāt. You were so desperate that you kept going. And no here you are today, living without any remnant of that inconsolable pain.ā
I think about her and for some reason the tears start coming. Not exactly for any particular reason, just that thereās such⦠a distance between the me of then and the me of now. That Iām okay now. That she wasnāt then. That she hurt so much. That she kept going so far, she made it to a today where she doesnāt feel that pain anymore.
sure I still have my problems. But⦠thereās still such a difference.
I almost feel like the memory of my younger self is just this embodiment of a little girl that never got closure. That me and her are two different people, and that that little girl is still stuck where she was; trapped in endless anxiety and fear. Maybe thatās why it hurts. Because in my head, Iāve separated us. Weāre not the same people. Sheās a fragment of me stuck in the past, and right now Iām just regular me.
but I know she was me and thatās why it hurts. Because even though weāre separated, I still feel part of what she felt. Part of what old me āstillā feels. Itās not like she ever really grew out of it into current me. Like sheās stuck where sheās at.
I guess thatās why I cried a little. Because sheās still there. We never really recovered, or resolved anything; time just kept going and going that eventually I had to leave my old self behind. We didnāt keep going together to heal the wounds that were formed. The wounds just aged into scars. Who knows. Maybe theyāre still āinfected.ā
I guess Iām a little mad at you.
maybe less, nowadays, but I still am. A little.
you know, when you try that fucking hard for someone, unconditionally going 110% out of your way to worry about them, think about them and trying to keep them alive, youād think theyād stick around.
You were never really a deep friend, you didnāt try for me like I tried for you. Hell, you didnāt even do the bare minimum. After all was said and done. When weeks turned into months of me trying to stay friends and keep our friendship alive and you barely even meeting me quarter way.
it was so unfair. After everything we went through, you just move on, make new friends without me, have all these new interests and thingsā Iām not mad that you had them, obviously thatās great for you butā you treated me like I wasnāt even important to you. Like I was so temporary. You never texted me first. Came over to my house on your own. You never asked me how my day was.
And then we just went no contact.
not because we fought or anything; just because I stopped texting you to see if youād text me first. See if youād really be interested enough in me or care enough about me to send a text as simple as āhey.ā But you didnāt.
I realized you didnāt care enough to say hello, which is why I tested you by not reaching out first anymore, which is when it proved that you didnāt care.
you never cared enough about me to even reach out once.
my poor old self went through all that shit for you. Just you. No one else. Because I loved you and cared about you so much. You were my best friendā my whole world. The thought of you dying was enough that I told you Iād kill myself too if you went through and did it.
you didnāt even know that I had depression after everything that happened. That the anxiety turned into a world of other problems after you got better.
you werenāt a shoulder for me.
Iām not even really sure what to say anymore.
I guess there really isnāt anything to say. I donāt know what I wanted to say in the first place; I guess I just wanted to tell you my thoughts and feelings; thoughts and feeling that youāll never know. Yet again.
Thought and feeling of the younger self that ruined herself for you so youād live. That fragment of misery embodied, that memory of her, haunting me in my daily life as I live like five years ago is far way, but never truly gone.
the difference between then and now is stark.
but I suppose the one thing that me and my old self have in common is thatā¦.. you still havenāt reached out.