To: condorboy
Date: Monday, March 12—2:13 PM
Subject: I’m sorry
Dear Connor,
I’m sorry I haven’t been taking your calls. I pretend to be sleeping whenever I hear the house phone ring. I don’t know what I’d do if I heard your voice. I’m afraid of it like I’ve never been afraid of anything.
Everything you said is right. Your words mix with my parents’ words and my sister’s words and spin around in my head, collect in the corner like cobwebs. But maybe it doesn’t matter anymore. Maybe I’m too fucked up to even be helped. There was a window when I thought maybe something was possible, a brief few hours when everything seemed clear and I knew what to do. The morning I woke up in that guy’s bed in Portland, I just knew I had to go home. And that gave me something to think about for the next four hours. It gave me a destination. And when I got home, I knew I had to write to you. And that gave me something to think about for a while too. Thinking of you made me feel sane. And then I went to sleep, and maybe for those hours when my eyes were closed and my body was still, maybe something inside me relaxed, and if a stranger came around and looked at me, he would think I was just a normal sleeping teenage girl. Maybe I looked like a girl who did well in school, a girl who had a boyfriend, a girl who was going to a good college. And these things would have all been true a few months ago. And maybe they could all be true now if I returned to life and got back to work. Maybe.
But those thoughts seem so translucent now, so like ghosts. When I woke up, things were black again, and they’ve just been getting blacker. My mom took me to a new shrink on Friday, one your mom recommended. Some little voice inside said I could trust her, but the bigger voice said what’s the use? And she wrote up a prescription, and she said I’d feel better in a couple weeks, but I had to be patient. And maybe this wasn’t the right drug, so maybe we’d have to try another one, and I’d have to be patient again. And maybe this would happen over and over until they found the right chemical concoction to keep me from going up and down, and she was sure that we’d get there. But I didn’t want to hear “patience,” I didn’t want to be told maybe it wouldn’t work. I know the other words were there, words like “hope,” words like “getting yourself back.” But those are the see-through words, the fragile things. Those are the things that break and cut you, the things you regret ever being stupid enough to believe in.
Part of me feels so done. Done with this chaos inside me, the chaos I’ve created in the worlds of everyone who’s ever mattered to me. Done with the darkness. Done with the shame. If I was gone, none of this would matter. You’d all get your lives back. And maybe after all this taking, that’s the best gift I could possibly give.
I’ve always doubted things. Questioned. But beneath it all, no matter how false everything seemed, I could always believe in my feelings. I always knew they were true. But now I have doctors and therapists telling me those are lies too. So now what? If everything is a lie, what do I have left?
I have you. You’re the one consistent thing I can trust. But you aren’t enough, Connor. I’m sorry. As wonderful and magical as you are, you can’t save me. And that’s not out of any weakness on your part. I know you’ve tried. Don’t think for a second that I haven’t noticed your busy little heart trying to fix all the things I break. But how could you possibly save me from myself? How could you pull out the broken pieces of me, rewire the faulty parts of my brain? Only I can do anything about that. The psychiatrist, the therapist, the doctor, my parents, my sister, you all keep saying just try, Isabel. Just be willing to try. But the truth is, I’m tired. Connor, I am so fucking tired. I don’t think I can try anymore.
The therapist gave me workbooks, but even opening them seems too hard. Lying in bed and reading a couple of pamphlets about bipolar disorder seems about as hard as running a marathon. All I want to do is reread your emails. It’s the only thing that really seems worth doing. It’s the only thing that seems like something I can even do. That’s the only world I want to live in anymore. The world of your words. The world of you loving me. But the real world is bigger than that. The real world hurts too much.
I don’t want to be crazy anymore. I don’t want to feel any of this. I don’t want to feel anything. I could pretend I believe it’s going to get better. But I would be lying. And I’m sick of lying. I’m sick of trying to protect everyone from myself. I don’t think it’s enough to do it for you anymore, to do it for my family. And that leaves me only one option. So now I’m saying good-bye. So now I’m the silly girl writing a suicide letter.
I’m sorry. You have to believe I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt anyone, especially you. Connor, you have loved me better than anyone.
Love always,
Isabel