The Void; Draft One

For the past two years, or so, I have been dealing with mild bouts of depression. I will get into a funk that will take weeks to come out of; and just when I think that I am over it, something pushes me over the edge and drags me back down with it. The most recent episode of this is my friend Seth. 1

He too is depressed, but his case is much worse than mine. I think that this is partly due to his parents, but mostly due to his lack of ability to express himself in ways other than cutting. 2

He tells me that he tries to stop, but every time something comes along that adds to the depression, the first thing he reaches for is a knife. The last time this happened, it was because of an episode with one of his friends, Jared. 3

Seth and Jared’s relationship is different than most. They met because Seth’s brother hit Jared with his truck and gave him a concussion. Ever since then they have become close friends; almost too close. I don’t remember exactly when Seth told me that they liked each other, but I do remember him telling me. 4

Just to give a little background, both Seth and Jared have been brought up in very Christian homes. They were taught from a very early age that being gay was a sin, and you would go to Hell for it. They were also told that showing interest in boys was just as bad as being gay, so you would burn for that as well. 5

Keeping this in mind while dealing with the aftermath of each encounter Seth and Jared endure is very hard. I personally have no issues with being gay, because quite frankly, I don’t care. My best friend Kelsey is gay, so it just doesn’t bother me. But Seth feels differently, he is of the mindset that what he feels is wrong and forbidden; so he must keep it bottled up inside and never tell a soul. 6

I have to try and pry it out of him every time I see that something is wrong, and every attempt I make to help him is rejected. I really feel that I cant do anything else to help him, but feeling helpless just makes me angry with him, and with myself because I am unable to help, and I can only watch as he slides farther and farther away from help, as he slides down a never ending spiral of pain, hate, despair, and loneliness.7

Every time Seth or Jared goes further than talking about their feelings, one or both back off and become uneasy with each other. They will not talk for days and Seth will become more depressed than ever. I know for a fact that they both have feelings for each other, but neither one will let go of his pride long enough to admit it. So they circle each other, butting heads occasionally, but they only hurt themselves more. 8

Seth’s affinity to sharp objects doesn’t help matters. I know that there are other ways of dealing with the pain of having your love rejected, and he knows that too, but he just cant seem to see through the fog of emotional storms to know that sharp objects are not the only way. 9

The last time Seth and Jared met, it was at a youth group meeting. Jared came by Seth’s house (where the meeting was being held) and they talked for a bit. Then a little while later, when Seth was sitting on the floor, Jared came up behind him, and they talked for a while more, and then Seth leaned up against Jared’s legs as they talked. He told me that nothing happened between them other than them talking, but the knife wounds in his shoulder tell me otherwise. Seth said that Jared just suddenly stopped talking to him, and still wont speak to him. So out came the sharp object.10

Around last Thursday, Seth came to my house and we talked for a while, but he seemed upset. So I hedged and avoided the subject, but subtly hinted at it, until he decided that he could talk to me. He rolled up his sleeve, baring the ugly hash marks his knife made in his shoulder the night before. He tells me that everything just went away; he felt nothing. Seeing the multiple shallow wounds on his shoulder produced a bone deep chill that only deepened as he told me that one of them almost needed stitches. I wanted to slap him and scream at him and tell him that this would do him no good. But the look on his face, and the anguish in his eyes told me that now was not the time for drastic measures. 11

I took his face in my hands and made him look me in the eye; I told him that even though the pain went away when he was cutting, it wasn’t truly gone. It would never truly be gone until he could accept it and find that he could move past it. I told him that even though it went away at the time, it would just come back again. It always comes back again, and each time it does, it’s worse than the time before. 12

Every time he tells me things like this, I fear that he will never come back. I feel that he is slipping away from me and it’s all I can do to call softly to him that he is safe and will always have a place in my heart. I don’t know what I can do to help him. Every time I try he just tells me that I wouldn’t understand, that I haven’t gone through anything like this. But he doesn’t know about the times I cried myself to sleep at night because I had spent the last hour staring at a knife that he had given me to keep away from himself. He doesn’t know about the nights when I still cry myself to sleep because I don’t know that I will wake up in the morning and he will still be there; and he doesn’t know that I have also contemplated suicide, just to make it all go away. But he doesn’t know about the lists I made of all the good things in life versus all the bad things. He doesn’t know that the reason my room smells like burning paper is because when I am done writing these lists I burn them so no one can find them. And most of all he doesn’t know that I sit awake at night and wonder what it would feel like if I took that large four inch blade and sliced through my skin to the flesh underneath and watched the blood spill over my skin and drip to the floor. He doesn’t see my sketchbook with all of its bloody pictures and all of its dripping knives. But no one sees that. No one knows these things. And no one ever will, unless I decide one day that I cant hold it in any more and I need to tell someone. Hell, it may even be Seth.13

But every time I see Seth, I am grateful that he could hold the insanity at bay long enough to come to his senses and decide that there is something worth living for, that there is more to life, and that if he ended it now, he would never know the joys of seeing our death wish fulfilled. He would never know the joy of having lived a full life and dying on his front porch with his best friend by his side, laughing at ourselves for all the stupid shit that we have done together over the years.14