Moments Suspended In Time
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Holiday GirlMy head is spinning and there seems to be too many thoughts in there to even begin to get them out coherently.
How can I explain the feeling of watching your best friend lie on the floor of a hospital screaming and claw at her wrists until she draws blood?
How I had to choke back my tears and help the nurse hold her down to be sedated, then try and be calm and collected when I spoke to what seemed like the hundredth psychologist that week.
What it's like to have your friend turn up on your doorstep at one am, having just run away from the hospital when they were doing her psych assessment. She drove forty five minutes to my house, down a freeway after having two sleeping pills and two valium. I have no understanding how she didn't kill herself or someone else on the road.
Holiday Girl's marriage is over, the house is sold and she has moved into her new place, then she found out her ex-husband is dating someone (three days after they finally decide to separate), then (as they have no legal custody agreement in place), he took their son and run away to the country with him. And that was the beginning of the end for her.
I took her back to hospital in the morning after she physically attacked me, after she screamed so loudly I had my neighbour phone to ask if everything was alright, after I saw the look of fear on School Girl Mermaid's face.
I sat next to her hospital bed for seven hours on Tuesday until her family arrived from the country to come and get her. When I had to get up to go to the toilet they had security guards watch her.
I can't articulate the gut wreching sorrow I felt, the pure pain and anguish in her eyes...she just kept screaming for me to let her die. She kept trying to get up and run away again, people in that state have so much strength when they are angry.
I felt like I was losing my best friend.
I have never seen anyone have a breakdown like that before...it was terrifying, the overwhelming sense of helplessness. I have the greatest respect for the people who do this for a job, the nurses and care workers, their strength and compassion is surreal.
I knew this was coming but I had no idea it woud be this huge...and all I keep thinking is what could I have done to prevent this? I had arranged for her Mum to come and stay for the first week in her new house and to help with her son, I called twice a day and made sure she had friends come over every night of the weekend so she wasn't alone, she she knew how much we care about her.
Then in the middle of the night, when we couldn't protect her from her thoughts and her endless need to overanalyse was when it overwhelmed her.
I should have been there.
Mermaid Girl