It's been three weeks since Sayori woke me up in the middle of the night. When I write it out like this, with no context (and assuming you're not one of those freaks that skips around a page as you read), that seems like a great thing. One long night, getting back into regular therapy, and a higher dose later, and everything is okay.
Unfortunately, that is not the case.
On the one hand, it is true that she hasn't woken my up in the middle of the dark since then. On the other, this is mostly because she's been at my place more than her own these past few weeks. The five or six days she hasn't, I've found myself waking up after a few hours of sleep anyways, and I always end up checking on her.
This isn't the first "flare-up" she's gone through since I learned that she was schizophrenic, but it's still… uncomfortable is the only way I can think to describe it. I'm not afraid of her, just… for her. I don't want to send that text at three or four in the morning when she's not here; every time I have, she's turned out to be okay, but I'm so damn scared if I don't act on that feeling when it happens…
She hasn't asked me to check on her -and I don't think she ever will, to be honest- but if I don't, I'm scared no one else will, and if she thinks she's dealing with this alone again…
I still don't know how else to describe this as anything but a "burden." That's wrong. I don't like typing it out, I fucking hate thinking it. Sayori is not a burden, she's my friend. She's my best friend. But I still find myself thinking it, and then immediately feeling bad for it. This isn't an everyday occurrence, it isn't a "most days" occurrence. Every other time this has happened, it's lasted a month, two or three at most, and once she adjusts to the higher dosage or the change in medication, everything is back to "normal," whatever that means. I just have to remember that, that this isn't "normal." This is the halfway point, hopefully, and it'll get better. It has to.
It's never any easier to watch. At least with her, it's never like what you seen in movies. Sayori doesn't fight with the voices, doesn't even acknowledge them, from what I've seen. They aren't present all the time, either. They come and go like ghosts, disappearing and reappearing from the walls at the worst times possible. During dinner, in the middle of the night, when we're crowded onto my twin-sized bed even though she has a queen in her apartment. When I'm at school, or my part-time job at the bookstore.
Some are worse than others. Sometimes it's enough for her to put her hands over her ears for a bit (not totally sure this actually does anything to help, maybe more of a comfort thing?) and she's okay. More often than not, though, she just goes blank and freezes up in the middle of whatever she's doing, like she just got the news that someone close to her died after a long, drawn-out fight with leukemia. Sometimes it stays there, sometimes it gets worse. More than once, it's led to hours-long panic attacks that I can't do anything to help. Those are the worst for me, sitting there completely helpless. I always try to make sure she's comfortable, but it's like I'm not even real.
She's ended up having to take the semester off from school. I tried to help her with homework for that first week, but it wasn't long after that that it progressed to where we are now, where she's afraid to go out in public. We've gone out together on some of the better days, but I think she doesn't want to go out because she's scared something with happen if she goes out alone. I don't actually know if that's the reason, since we don't really talk about the problems her illness causes too much, but that's my best guess. I've tried to get her to go out with friends -not sure how many know about her illness, but I can think of a few that do and are still relatively close to where we live- but it never seems to work out. As much as I hate to even think this, I'm starting to think she might not even be trying when it comes to that.
That's okay, though, I guess. I shouldn't judge her for that… don't think I'd want to be around other people if I had to deal with something like that, either. I don't resent her for it or anything, it's just- it gets to me sometimes.
We'll get through this. We always do.
It can't rain all the time...