It's been nearly a month since I've written here. Between exams and life in general, there just hasn't been time. My last final exam is tomorrow morning at 8am, and graduation is later this week. It's crazy. Everything is changing so fast. School, work, my friends...
Here's the question. What do you do when your friend is destroying themselves? Do you intervene and try to help, or do you let them continue towards the end of the cliff, and be there to pick them back up when they fall? Both have consequences. Stopping a self-destructive behavior can cause anger towards those attempting to help. Getting involved too late can be precisely that, too late. Both paths are risky in a friendship. You want to help because you care, because you don't want to loose your friend. This of course, does not just mean loosing a friendship. This means the true loss of a friend in the emotional, and purely physical, sense.
One of the worst things than watching a friend hurt themselves, is not knowing where to start, what to do. You can't simply sit back and do nothing. But you can't go charging headlong into something without a course of action. Not knowing the precise reasoning behind such ruinous actions makes helping even more difficult. Watching someone you care about, someone who has been in your life for a very long time, spiral down into darkness is a tough, and extremely painful thing to see. The only thing we can do is our best. We can be there through it all. Through the anger, the pain, the hurt, and finally the joy. The joy of being free of a torment which can crush until we no longer feel anything. Either that, or we feel so much we are simply incapable of taking anymore.
Peace,
Elina
This photo is from Killowen Point in County Down.
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