A Letter To Say What I Can't

Dear Girl-I-Worry-About-In-My-Year-Group,

Hi. I'm sorry I couldn't tell you this face to face, but - you see - the real problem is that I can't deal with your problems as well as my own.
It sounds awful, but please, let me explain.
Last March my problems were just heating up, and you told me you were worried about me. In a haze of my own tears you took me aside and insisted that I tell you that I was getting help. You told me of your own problems - so many problems, and so similar to mine - hoping that it would make me feel not so alone. What I must now tell you is that although I fully understand your good intentions, and know how sweet they were, I was in a place where I couldn't deal with what was going on in my own head - let alone yours as well.

That night I went home and had my first anxiety attack, and my mother took me to the out of hours doctors.

I haven't told anyone what you told me, but it prays on my mind almost every day.
You're not a small girl, and you work hard. You remind me of how I used to be before I admitted I had a problem. Stressed out to the max, doing far too much work, wanting to loose weight, no time for friends, and unsatisfied with every good grade. Wrapped up in a little bubble of me, not knowing how to relax. This is a bubble that I still often find it hard to come out of.

Every time you tell me about your stresses, I'm torn between running a mile and telling you all of my deepest secrets in the hope that I can shock you out of what you seem to be becoming.

Yet, I also need to admit that this could just be my mind, searching for someone else like me. Scrutinizing your figure to judge if you've lost weight. Obsessing over finding "the same" in someone else.

Sometimes it may seem like I don't care, when I break off a conversation or seemingly snap at you. Please don't take it that way. Its because I care that I run a mile - I don't want to hurt you when I finally fly off the handle or do something stupid. It sounds crazy, but somehow it makes sense. By protecting you from what I know maybe you won't go the same way I did.

Please forgive me. Please don't think any worse of me for protecting myself.

Yours,
G xx