Comrades In Arms

I've also been worrying about J----. We met in the hospital and exchanged info, though that's considering breaking a rule in hospital. You're not supposed to have outside contact with anyone you meet inside the psych ward. But we sort of clicked, and it was only for two days. She was discharged before me. But for a few weeks, we didn't talk, and then I called. Because I needed to talk. And it was strange to be able to call someone and to realize that when they asked how you were doing, for once, you didn't have to lie. So we became each other's touchstones. She called when she was thinking about cutting and her husband wasn't home. I called when I just needed to reach out to someone who understood. But the last time I talked to her, things were bad. She was talking about going back into the hospital, about cutting, about wanting to stop taking her meds, even about letting it all go and committing suicide. And I haven't heard from her since, and I... I'm truly afraid to call, to find out that maybe she's relapsed, or worse. I understand wanting to die. And she was in such a black depression. If she committed suicide, not only would it be a horrible tragedy for her family and friends, but selfishly, it'd be like losing a comrade in arms. How easy it is for any of us to slide down that razor's edge, and it'd be like looking into a mirror and seeing possible futures, possible outcomes. How many of us end that way? Why, with all the medications, the therapy, the hospitals, why do some of us never make it? I don't even know if I'm grieving for what could have happened to her, and for myself. Maybe it's for all us standing on the edge of that yawning pit of despair, the slick whisper that asks us, "What are you doing all of this for? Why must you, why must anyone, have to live this?" I can't explain it. All I know is that I have to hold on. And that's as irrational to me as the depression. And I hope like hell she's held on, too.