This is the brief story of an agoraphobic friend who got lost inside her own head: why must the best people suffer? The people who deserve the most love and kindness in this world seem to be the ones who end up with the short side of the stick every time. Life is unfair to say the least. Let’s get into it:
I woke up with a few plans to get things done today: catch up on laundry, clean the floors, go over to the parents for a coffee, do groceries, and maybe get some writing done. I woke up at 9:30 am, made my coffee, sat down at the kitchen table at 9:45 and haven’t got up once yet, it’s now 1 pm. I scrolled, I jotted notes down about things I read online, I read a couple pages of a book, but I mostly just sat here in a daze, gazing out the window like a lost puppy. My mind can’t focus on anything because it keeps bringing me back to Kate.
Kate is my girl that I hadn’t seen in a while (close to two years) who gave me a surprise visit a couple days ago. I used to see her a lot more, even when she was diagnosed with agoraphobia, I was the only friend she allowed into her apartment. I brought her a coffee and a bagel almost every morning because I knew she was the kind of person who needed a routine, as well as a feeling of safety, knowing someone is always there for her. If not she would unravel it seemed.
I brought her groceries, books, clothes, the little things, anything she needed. I even made more late night liqour store runs than I can count. Her need for numbing herself seemed to increase as the years went on.
When she asked me one morning not to come I was a little worried but I let it slide, she needed alone time that day, everything was good. The next day she said the same thing and even after me insisting I stop by, she didn’t allow it. She seemed angry, so I left it alone. The whole week she told me not to come, until I made my own decision to pick up a few basic supplies and go drop them off. She had to be getting low on food, and toilet paper I didn’t care what she said, I was going to see her.
When I got there I heard moaning, and whining it sounded like, coming from the other side of her door. Then muffled whispers. I knocked a few times before I used my key to let myself in. Kate was on the floor in a fetal position, rocking back and forth whining and whispering to herself, her fingernails making their way from her cheeks to her neck, tearing her skin apart, drawing a unexpected amount of blood for just fingernails.
I thought maybe she had hurt herself real bad so I ran over to her. She belted out something incoherent when she lifted her head to look at me, while she continued to scratch at her face. I bent down to help her up and she scratched at me too, and almost hissed it seemed like. Then she put her hands over her ears and kept screaming “LEAVE ME ALONE!” repeatedly, at the top of her lungs. I told her the neighbors were going to call the cops soon. I guess she really didnt want to deal with other people so she eventually calmed down after about five minutes straight of this.
When she seems to be in a rational mindset again she looks at me so calmly and says “Why are you still here? I don’t want you here, I don’t need anybody. I want to sit here and rot in my pity until this suffering ends. I need you to go and promise me you wont come back.” As her friend that has been by her side since the fifth grade, I was shocked and saddened. I thought things would get better as we got older and she realized there was a whole world out there with no reason for us to be defined by our past. For her, everything seemed to get worse with time.
I wasnt just going to walk out of that apartment and never look back. I stayed and tried to reason with her, tried to see where this sudden darkness was coming from. She told me to just let her go, there is no hope for her now and there never will be. She talked of her tortured mind, the whispers, the demons and the walking nightmares. She lived in a bubble of her past. She could not let go.
Eventually she started screaming again and clawing at her face. She threw a remote, a fork and glass my way, missing every time. I tried to calm her down but when she put a knife to her wrist threatening to kill herself if I didnt leave right then, I panicked and proceeded to leave. I asked her to promise me she wouldnt hurt herself if I did leave and I used the guilt card because I know it would make a difference when it came to Kate. Letting people down was something too hard for her to bare. So I told her I would never forgive her if she harmed herself.
I called her later that day, she seemed to be back to her normal self except the melancholy in her voice was deeper it seemed. She apologized but told me she wanted to do this on her own from now on, she had to prove to herself she is a worthy being capable of living her life without a babysitter. She needed to feel like she had some sort of purpose. At first I got a little mad at her and told her that I didn’t care what she wanted because I know what she needs. She spends most of her time alone already, living with her nightmares. I couldn’t imagine her being okay with being alone all the time.
Eventually she convinced me that she really was okay and she knows she needs this to be the next step in her journey. She was done with living in the past. Kate was ready to get back out there and was actually making the first step? If me stepping back helps get that done in anyway, I was all for it. I told her I’d still be calling to check up though and possibly drop off some goods and leave them outside her door. She told me not to but I did anyway.
At first I called her every day but as time went on the calls got shorter, and she answered them less. Any time I did talk to her though she seemed as if she was getting better each phone call. Almost as if she just didnt want me in her life anymore and was doing great without me. She told me she was making slow steps in leaving the house at least once a day. I took her word for her it although hard to believe.
I’ve stopped by her apartment with coffee, bagels, croissants, muffins, and even her favorite candies and she never let me in. Sometimes I’d get to see her eye poking through the peek hole, but she never opened the door for me. She hardly even spoke to me through the door. After a year of pleading and begging for her to let me see her, I really did step back. I gave her space. I still called but eventually she stopped answering, and soon after the number had been disconnected altogether. This was after about a year and six months of not seeing her. I got worried not knowing her situation so I went to her apartment looking for her, for the landlord to tell me she moved out five months ago now. He didn’t know where she was going and couldnt tell me even if he did. Confidentiality. I tried to pay him off incase he really did know, to no avail.
I went home and spent the day trying to find her online as well as call anyone close to her to see if they had seen her. No one has seen her nor heard from her. She didn’t have many people in her life, her mom died at a young age and dad left so she was put into the system. The only “parents” she does know were abusive emotionally, psychically and sexually. I knew she would never call them for any help so I didnt even bother. I called up her foster brother Abel and he said he hasn’t heard from her in years. They had a blow up a few years back and never reconciled.
I decided I should call the police. They told me that she was a grown woman and was aloud to do whatever it was she wanted. They checked her records and seen that she was still using her credit cards, but failed to tell me where because “confidentiality.” I guess I could be an axe murderer looking for one specific girl to kill? It pissed me off either way. Kate pissed me off more, how could she be so selfish? Until I seen her again, she knew all I would do is worry.
What the hell was she doing? She needed me, I was all she had. Like I said the only “family” she had was her emotionally abusive foster mother who used to degrade her everyday, embedding the words useless, ugly, disappointment, loser and more into her young mind. Her bedtime stories were of demons and serpents taking over her mind and life because she was good for nothing, a waste of space. Stories of how she would end up a hooker or dead in a cold alleyway with the stray dogs feasting on her. At least she would be good for something, her mother would tell her: feeding the starving dogs. Stories about how no one would ever love her or miss her. Then she had her foster father who was the friendliest guy in the world but liked to make his little girl “feel good” he would say. But it had to be their little secret. Fucking disgusting. She never told me this until a few years ago.
She had Abel, they were close growing up but it seemed he started to feel estranged from Kate the more neurotic and angry she got as the years went on. They seemed to drift apart and then had a falling out that neither of them cared to fix.
Kate and I had our group of friends growing up but she was always indifferent to us. She was a loner and most of the time would try to stick to herself. I forced her to go out and participate in activities. I never realized until now when I look back, how much sadness Kate carried around with her. She was the kindest person I have ever met, with a heart of gold. The kind of kid who would squish herself up against the door in a 3 seater car seat, so that the other people sitting with her would be comfortable. The kind of girl who would step over an ant or release a spider instead of killing it. Any room she was in she was always trying to make sure everyone was comfortable and content. She cared so much for every living thing, to never get any good in return but she tried so hard to keep her spirits up for years. But looking back I see now, she was fighting a losing battle with herself.
After high school Kate eventually met a guy who showed all the signs of prince charming. He treated her like gold at first until the hitting started. And the emotional abuse. He was slowly grooming her and programming her mind to believe that what he was doing wasnt wrong and that she deserved it. This went on for years, and she never told anyone. She was a good actress.
She bent over backwards for this guy as he slept around on her, didnt call some nights leaving her hanging and worried she had did something to upset him and that she would lose him. He made her abort a baby convincing her she was unfit to be a mother, and that the kid would come out a devil child. He held a power over her. She felt like needed his approval in order to be looked at as a worthy woman. When he eventually left, telling her that all she was a rag doll with no spine or guts, trash and unlovable to any respected man, she retreated from the world.
That’s when she stayed in her apartment most days only leaving to go to her publishing job where she sat in an office by herself until her shift ended and she headed back home. After a few months of this, she realized how much safer the world was inside these four walls. “No one can hurt me now don’t you see? And I cant hurt anyone but myself in here.” I remember her telling me all those years ago. I thought it was just a phase. A year and a half later she was diagnosed with agoraphobia. It wasnt a phase.
At twenty-three, after three years of hiding out she developed lupus, a disease that occurs when your body’s immune system attacks your own tissues and organs (autoimmune disease). She started drinking heavily. And medicating herself. She was on anti-depressants and anti-anxiety which only seemed to numb her fully. I was slowly losing my Kate. She got better one year, worse the next, good for a month, bad for five. I was used to it. Until all this happened and she cut me out of her life completely and went and did God knows what.
After trying for a couple weeks trying to figure out her whereabouts, I slowly started to come to terms with it. People come and people go, its life. If I wasnt beneficial to her journey anymore and she needed to cut me out, I get it. That was her decision and it was selfish of me to try to force myself on her. I let her go, and there was silence between us for close to two years. I only hoped she was doing good and hopefully living her best life.
Two days ago when she showed up unexpectedly, she proved the opposite. Her eyes were sunken in, her skin purple and thin. Her hair was matted in three different places, her clothes old looking and battered, and she smelt like she’s been sleeping in a dumpster. I’m not sure what the look on my face portrayed to her but as quick as she came, she was trying to turn around and leave again mumbling about how shes a fuck up for coming, she should have never disturbed my life again, shes a loser, a waste of space. She started hitting herself in the head until I grabbed her and held her close.
My Kate, I missed her so much. I failed to help her and shes gotten herself into this mess, what kind of friend am I? I should have never let her do it on her own. When I was hugging her the waterworks started pouring out of me. I failed her. I wiped off my tears and brought her inside.
The look in her eyes broke my heart. She wasn’t Kate anymore. She didn’t have one sign of light left in her. It’s as if she went to go live the life she was told she was destined to live.
People who live soft can be undone by beasts. People who live along the beasts have the advantage. Kate could never move in unsion with these monsters who called themselves human. She could never wrap her mind around how people could be so monstrous, over the years it broke her. Now more than ever it seemed. I seen no hope in her eyes.
I sat her down at the kitchen table and asked her where she had been. She wasnt ready to talk yet but I could tell she had so much to say. I didnt push her, instead I asked her if she wanted something to eat or if she wanted to take a hot bath and relax. She agreed to the bath, I offered her a glass of red which she gladly accepted and she soaked in the bath for close to an hour.
When she got out she looked a little livelier. A little bit more color in her face. I poured her another glass of merlot, knowing I didn’t even have to ask. I poured myself one as well, preparing myself for the turn of events I was about to hear. I turned the voice recorder on my phone on just in case something happened. She didnt look or seem like Kate anymore and it worried me a little, I’m not gonna lie.
She shared nothing of where she has been, instead she said “I’m done Kay, this is it. I wanted to say goodbye.” I tried to interrupt her and ask her what she meant, but she kept going before I could.
“In a dream my instinct for survival told me to keep going, to find a place to hide. I’ve learned along my journey not to trust the shadows and the ghosts but it is becoming harder. And there is no where to hide. All of it is becoming increasingly harder. Everything. I’m exhausted. I sold my soul to sickness and painkillers long ago. I have become a hostile, irrational then rational, agreeable then insulting, passive aggressive, cruel, sadistic, deeply disturbed type of person. I don’t know where I am or who I am anymore. Despair, agony and pain runs through every vein. I try to move on but the weight of the world gets stronger everyday. Each road marked by false signs, happiness for me, Kay, is a distant relative. I see other people able to fight off the dark and really live their lives but me, I’m stuck and I envy the ones who aren’t. Envy and resentment are terribly corrosive passions and I am destroying myself with this and everything else that kills me. I am an enemy of human happiness, a curse upon the human race and for once and for all, I’m done. I just wanted to let you know that if it wasn’t for you, I’d be done long ago.”
I actually let her get all that out before speaking up. I seen that her hands were both sitting on the table in front of her, therefore I didnt expect her to do anything irrational like pull out a damn knife or gun or anything crazy. Then I said “Okay Kate let’s be rational here. Let’s be smart. What are you going to do? Stop this nonsense talk, you are going to stay here with me for a bit and we will figure it out together.” Although my plan was to get her into a suicidal prevention place or a mental ward I guess you’d call it, I wasnt going to tell her that right at this moment.
“No, I knew you would try to convince me but this is it Kay! This is it!! Stop!” She started smashing her fists over her head harder than I’ve ever seen her do. She was causing damage probably internally she wasnt hitting so hard. She pulled out a razor blade attached to some sort of plastic, (looking like a shiv you would see in prison) and held it up to her neck. She was crying hysterically. “I’m done Kay I’m sorry I dont want to do this here though, so just let me go.” She knew I wasnt going to let her go anywhere. Either she was taking her life right there in front of me or she wasnt doing it at all. I was scared to approach her.
She was shaking like a leaf and looked like she was out of her mind completely. She dropped the blade unexpectedly after about three minutes of threatening to hurt herself or me if I didnt let her leave. I ran up to the blade, put it on the counter far away from her and held her close as she leaked tears and boogers all over my sweater. I called the cops with my right hand over her shoulder and hung up right away, knowing they would come but also not wanting Kate to know I called.
Kate was at a loss for words, a little angry it seemed but submissive when they got there. She didn’t say much after that. She was restrained for safety measures and put in the back of the cop car. I asked if I could follow behind they said it was fine they took her to the hospital where we all went in together and she was admitted into the mental health facility in the section D of the hospital. Just until they could figure out if she is in need of real, paid help and they would send her somewhere better.
I went out and bought her coffee and a bagel from her favorite bakery, I stopped for some goodies at the store: all her favorite snacks and treats. I grabbed some of her favorite books from my place and I also picked up a few sudoku and crossword books to distract her mind a little. Kate was heavily medicated when I got there to drop off the stuff. I gave her a kiss on the cheek and headed out.
This all happened two days ago now. I am going to try my best to visit her every day and the days I cant, I will call her. My main goal in life right now is get my girl Kate back on her feet.
Why is it that depression takes over the best people? The ones with the biggest hearts who would go to the end of the earth to make even a stranger happy. Why couldn’t life even out a little bit, give us a little bit more fair times and less unfair ones? The saying goes “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” but no, how about “what doesn’t kill you makes you emotionally traumatized and damaged for years to come unless you have a strong enough mind power to overcome the bullshit.”
Life is just unfair sometimes and its unfortunate to say the least.. I just want Kate, for once in her life to find some form of her own twisted happiness is this chaotic, sometimes confusing like world.
I am going to keep updates on Kate’s progress in different articles. I know in my heart she is going to be okay. I feel this is the turning point for her. I won’t let her go back this time. I’m hoping that her story will be success story that is capable helping others realize that there is more to life than suffering and our fears. And if she never finds that light again, it is confirmed proof for me that humans are pure evil. We have the ability to change someone’s life for the worst or best, some people chose to screw up other peoples lives for no good reason and for that I will always hold a bit of sorrow in my heart.
