When I was in college I had a very close friend who was a bit younger than I was. You see, I studied a performance art and the younger you start the better so they accepted 16 year olds who hadn't finished school into the course. This was perfect for my friend as he was miserable at school but a brilliant performer. The first year threw us a lot of obstacles and we worked as a wonderful team to be the best versions of ourselves. Unfortunately as the year drew to a close life outside college started to dominate both of our lives, mine in a positive way but his in a negative way.
You see, not only was my friend the only guy in the course but the class ranged from 2-17 years older than him. As things started to go sour in his home life and the prospect of returning to secondary school loomed he put more emphasis on socialising with those from his old school. Age appropriate friends are great and an important part of adolescence but he fell into the wrong crowd. Smoking weed and getting beaten up became usual evening and weekend activities and he left the stage school that had once been his family.
Now this quickly spiralled into his darkness. The once bubbly smart-ass turned into this stressed vulnerable little boy and that lead him to focus even more so on weed. His class work was being neglected and he started missing a lot of rehearsals. The other girls in the class were pissed. They couldn't understand what could make anyone miss so much rehearsal time. Soon the girls started to verbally abuse him, not because they wanted to be mean but because they were frustrated and wanted to tell him to go to class. This became an incentive to avoid college for him and then he fell victim to abusive texts and voice mails. I had been trying to stand up for him all this time but they were starting to look for details about what was tough in his life and it wasn't my place to say. I started to withdraw socially from the group and it made it harder for me to shelter him from the scrutiny.
One day he showed up with a bandage on his wrist. He passed it off as sprain from par core but I knew how alone he had become and he admitted to self harm when I approached him about it. I want to make this totally clear, you should report cases of self harm as I had with others in the college but this case was different. I couldn't approach the college as he was a minor and would be removed from the course and placed back into the school he hated. I couldn't turn to his mother because she never stood near me long enough to hear what a student had to say about her kid. There was nothing I could do but check his wrist every day, call him up on days off and prewarn him about whatever new terms the class were making for him. It was a hard ride but we got through it.
Unfortunately that's practically the end of our story. He started to get better when he went back to school and he stopped needing me. I don't regret how I handled it but he was not suicidal so I could shelter him on my own. All I'm saying is know your circumstances. If it's you that's hurting, figure out what you need and tell people around you. If it's your friend, give them time, support, incentive to be around you and trust. A suicide threat should never go unreported but not all self harm is a suicide threat, sometimes it's just a coping mechanism. Help is everywhere you look if you see things that way. Robbie Williams has a fantastic lyric "Love lingers on you're just feeling it wrong" and I try to think of that when I feel unloved.
Hugs and hope,
depressivedetails@gmail.com
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