you cant change them

i wasnt there for it and i thank God everyday i missed it.  knowing me, i would have interfered, once again believing that i could save him from himself.  i would have put myself between him and the knives, separate him from colin and patrick, and the two girls with the stupid names i cant even remember.  just because we weren't dating anymore didnt mean i didnt stop caring about seth, or from thinking that i could save him.  that was my "job" you see, something i always thought i had to do.1

he was messed up you know.  i mean, everyone's got their problems, but seth's were different.  i called it "freaking out" but i think the clinical term is panic attack.  we dated for 10 months, my first serious relationship.  my first love.  the reason's we broke up were inconsequentional, we'll just say that i finally came to my senses after being cheated on numerous times.  2

i both hated and loved being with him.  both loved and hated that i had to take care of him.  the kicker here is that he would have been just fine if he could have just stayed off of the drugs.  he wasn't a heroin addict or anything like that.  but he drank like the irishman he was and i watched him clean weed more than a few times.  now there's nothing wrong with a little drinking a smoking, i've been known to hit the bottle and the pipe a few times myself.  but when he did it, he became unbalanced, paranoid, manic.  his depression would come on like a freight train, and most times i thought he'd never come back up.  3

it was the worst when he drank.  liquor brought out the demons in Seth. he never hit me or anything, but it didnt take much to get him drunk and when he hit that point he was done, and i'd have to spend the rest of the night reassuring him that everything was ok, that people still liked him, that i still loved him. i'd talk to him through the hyperventilation, through the repition, always assuring him that things were not so bad. he knew he had problems, he knew that the drugs and alcohol brought out the worst in him, but he couldn't stop, and i think deep down, he didnt really want to.  4

but then came the suicide attempts.  almost weekly he'd call me crying, telling me he didnt want to live anymore.  a lot of it he said was guilt from cheating on me, although it didnt seem to stop him from doing it repeatedly.  i caught him, more than once, in his room with bright red marks around his neck and a cinched belt in his hand, a look on his face like he was ashamed.  i tried everything i could think of, i cried, i begged, i pleaded, i screamed, i threatened. he went on anti-depressants, but nothing seemed to make a difference.  but i was the girlfriend, the love of his life as he so often told me.  i came to believe i was the only one who could save him.5

but then he left for the summer, and i decided that i didnt want to wait.  i couldnt take it anymore, i'd lost focus at school, my friends didnt know what was going on, i was too embarrassed to tell them.  Seth made it away from home, and away from me for about 3 weeks, but then the depression and suicide attempts started agian, but this time i wasnt there to hold his hand and soothe him.  by this time i'd realized what i'd been doing to myself and knew it would never work out with him ever again.  i started dating an old friend of mine and i realized what love was really about.  seth came home6

but then that night came.  july 4th.  i was out of town with my new boyfriend and some mutual friends.  i got home the day after and after my mom asked me how my trip was, she got this look on her face and said, "something happened to Seth.  he's in the mental ward of the hospital" apparently the story goes like this:7

Seth and i had lots of mutual friends (we used to work together) and he was celebrating the 4th of July with my friend's Colin and Patrick, also two other girls whom i dont know.  Seth showed up stoned. he got to Colin's house and to no one's surprise proceeded to get drunk.  Colin and Patrick had both seen his manic episodes on more than one occasion so they figured there'd be trouble eventually.  8

and it came, out of nowhere as usual.  Seth started crying and screaming about how i was this horrible person because i left him and didnt love him anymore.  he said how much he hated me, that he wanted to kill me for doing this to him.  both patrick and colin were with him on the couch, trying to calm him down.  immediately Seth jumped up and ran to the kitchen.  Like most households, there was a knife rack with about 5 different butcher knives.9

grabbing all 5 seth ran to the basement.  colin ran the girls upstairs and told one of them to call 911.  back down in the basement, seth was still ranting, practically speaking in tongues, complete gibberish.  the only discernable sounds were "i hate her, i hate her."  both boys were still trying to talk him down.  suddenly seth put one of the knives up to his neck and screamed "good bye"  he threw two of the knives at the boys but missed them.  both realized that they were in serious danger and left seth alone in the basement10

a few moments later, seth was back upstairs, sitting on the couch, a knife in one hand, two knives in the other.  colin went upstairs to check on the girls, while patrick cleaned up the kitchen trying to make it semi-presentable for when the police came.  he checked on seth every few seconds.  but the last time he checked, the sliding door was open and seth was gone.  11

Patrick raced to the front of the house, and got there just as seth was climbing up the front porch steps.  at that same moment the police arrived.  Standing on the porch Seth began screaming, ranting, talking about how the government was out to get him (he always was fond of anarchy) and that if "one motherfucking pig stepped one foot closer he'd slit his own throat"  it was a suicide-by-attempt and one that nearly succeeded.  out of nowhere, he was tackled by a policemen hiding in the bushes and Seth was arrested and taken to the mental ward of the hospital downtown.12

The police later told the boys that if seth hadn't been taken down at that moment, they would have had no choice but to shoot him.  They complimented my friends on their ability to handle a tough situation and wished more teenagers could be as responsible as they were.13

seth was in the hospital for a week.  I visited him there and had a long conversation.  i put my foot down.  i had no more sympathy for him, i'd been through too much.  i told him he was done.  no more drinking, smoking, nothing.  i told him i refused to watch him destroy himself.  he didn't say much.  i got up to leave and he grabbed my arm.  i'll never forget the look in his eyes as he said "dont you dare put limits on our friendship"  he said it in a way that made me sure that if if i had been there that night, i'd not be alive today 14

i give this story not to evoke sympathy or for entertainment value, but as a lesson to all of you out there who think you can change someone with mental problems.  the changing cannot come from you, it can only come from them.  i'll admit that right after i heard what happened, i felt tremendously guilty.  even after all that i still thought that i could have stopped him.  the only thing you can do is set limits, especially if nobody else is.  people like seth must know that there are consequences for their actions.  15

i will always be grateful to colin and patrick for keeping cool heads and handling the situation like mature adults.  my love for you guys always16