To You.

I hate to do another self pitying emo-kid post, but what else would you expect from me? I have some friends who suffer from POTS as I do who came up with a wonderful idea for a website - letters you can't send. I'd love to link you all to the website, but I can't find it, so hopefully I can edit that in here later. I would ALSO love to be able to write some letters facing the big demons in my life (some which have to do with my last post), but I don't have the words for that at this point in my life. So for today, I'm tackling something smaller. Here we go.

Dear You,

I fell hard for you. In high school, you were the one person who acted like you cared. You did it in a terrible, misinformed way, but I appreciated it still. And I clung to you secretly. Because the idea that someone could actually care, it was just what I needed. The appreciation grew into a crush, almost an infatuation that could never be shared with anyone. Because I knew I was screwed up, I knew I was already guilt ridden for what everything going on with me was doing to my family and I didn't want to bring anyone else into that. I wanted to be able to hold onto that feeling of someone caring so badly, but I didn't want to ruin anyone's life in the process. So I took my thoughts inward, which ended in so much self destructiveness that it became habit.

Cassie from Skins is a character I’ve always seen so much of myself in – she wants love so badly – she just wants to be cared for. She is an anorexic, but her friends and parents are too involved in their own lives to notice or care. And then one day, a boy – Sid – comes along and expresses concern over her eating habits. From that moment on, she’s in love. She hallucinates getting texts from him saying “EAT,” she even nearly kills herself when he rejects her. All of it, I feel, isn’t about her deep liking for him. I believe it was the idea of him caring that brought on her infatuation, that made her attempt suicide out of utter despair of the one person she thought cared shattering her hope.

And you shattered mine. I know it was silly, pinning all my hopes on one person. I knew it at the time, even - but it was all I had. I've grown up. You may not believe it, but I have. I've said it before and I've said it time and time again - I can not and will not EVER count on any person. EVER. They will always let me down. And you have, in every way, shape, and form, proved that to me. I grew out of my infatuation. I am able to realize I never loved you, I just loved the idea of someone caring. But even with high school over with, I still considered you a friend. And I'll be honest, the past made me vulnerable to you still. I shared my secrets with you.

I wish I could make you understand how little time and energy I have and how much of it I spent on you - because I care about YOU. And you say you care too, but I have yet to see you express that past those first few years of high school. I feel like I was just a game to you, your own little episode of House where you got to play Doctor. The second I told you my diagnosis, you stopped acting like I mattered. When in the past several years have you asked how I am? I can answer that - NEVER. When do you initiate the conversation between the two of us? NEVER. When do you show up to things I invite you to? Oh, I can answer that, never. Do you realize that when you missed my birthday party and I had to contact you about it because we were all waiting for you to show up, you couldn't even offer me a Happy Birthday? For someone who claims to care so much and prides themself on doing anything and everything for their friends, you sure have a funny way of showing it.

I really tried. I tried to realize you're going through a lot, and that I can be needy. But you know what? This has been happening for years. I can refer you back to a post on this very blog where I texted you desperately after OD'ing and you gave me some flippant reply via text. That sums up our entire friendship. You called my needs "overwhelming and demanding." I won't argue that. But you just remember EVERY time I have tried to help you, every time I've promised to be there for you if you need something, how I offered my home to you. Because I am a person who actually keeps their promises, unlike you. And I may be overwhelming in terms of what I'm dealing with, but I give more than I take.

I am SO very thankful I have my friend J (who I also talked about in the aforementioned post) to show me what a true friend is. To show me that I mean something. I refuse to put up with your crap anymore. I am sorry that trying to talk to you about this issue made you mad, that it wasn't the "right" time for me to bring it up, but it had to be said. You represent a BIG chunk of my past, and I'm too vulnerable to you to have you treating me like this. I'm a forgiving person. All I wanted from confronting you was an apology, some sort of realization regarding what you've done (or not done) to/for me, but you can't even give me that. I'll always care about you, but I'm not giving you any more of my life. Don't tell me what it means to feel worthless until you've had someone you considered one of your best friends act like your possible death means nothing. Because that is exactly what you did to me. You've made me feel less than worthless - like the biggest burden in the world. Like the world would be much better without me in it. And I refuse to let a person like that waste a second more of my time.

Goodbye.