Helpless

There are some thing you just can’t fix. In the fairytales of my childhood there was always a happy ending. Where there was a damsel in distress locked away in a tower, there was always a hero riding in on their white horse to save the day. Real life isn’t like that. Some people get stuck in that tower and no matter how hard they try, the hero is helpless to save them.

He once told me that he had a secret that would scare me, something that would make me want to stay away from him. It took him three months to share that secret.

3:00 am. I lay in the darkness of my bedroom, staring up at the ceiling, my phone pressed against my ear. Over the past few months we had many calls like this, talking late into the night about anything and everything that came to our minds. This time something was different. He wasn’t cracking jokes anymore, instead his voice grew quiet, almost urgent. “What is your worst secret.” I paused at the words, unsure of how to answer. Luckily I didn’t have to, it was his time to talk. “I think I’m ready to tell you mine.”

You never know. The people who grow up in pain learn to hide it so well. How could I have guessed that when he fell suddenly silent it was because the world wasn’t silent to him. That when he zoned out of conversations it was because something else was fighting for attention. How could I have known that the nights he suddenly swerved the car it was because he saw something standing in the road. Something that wasn’t really there.

Schizophrenia. It was the first time I’d heard the word used in real life. Before then it was something I heard on TV to describe crazy people. People who screamed at nothing and tried to attack thin air. That was not the boy I knew. The boy on the phone wasn’t crazy, he was my best friend.

After that night our relationship changed. He allowed me a glimpse of the side of himself he kept locked away.

I would stay with him when it got bad. He told me that there was nothing I could do to help, but I wanted to try. I’d talk to him, trying to bring him back to the present. It didn’t work, he wasn’t there. He was trapped in a world of monsters that I could not visit.

Sometimes he’d try to describe it to me. He’d tell me about the cold hands he could feel grabbing at him, hitting him, attacking him when he was most vulnerable. He’d tell me about the whispers he’d hear at night, vocalizing every fear and insecurity he’d ever had. He’d tell me about the men and women he saw, some with faces some without. They were terrorizing dark shadows that followed him wherever he went, dragging him down and scratching invisible scars. It was a nightmare come to life. I didn’t know how to wake him up.

I would get texts in the middle of the night. I’d hear the buzz of my phone on my nightstand and the words that appeared on my screen chilled me to my core. “Run. Hide. Lock yourself in your room. They’re coming for you.” Once I became a part of his life he saw his demons following me too.

I wanted to help. I wanted to be the solution. I wanted so badly to ride in on my white horse and fight the creatures that I couldn’t see but were so real to him. All I could do was sit and hold his hand on the nights when he didn’t even know I was there.

Helpless. He is helpless and so am I. My words cannot console the boy who sees strange people surrounding him. I cannot block out the awful things they say to him. It doesn’t matter that they don’t exist because sometimes they are more real to him than I am.

There are some things you just can’t fix.