Crazy

I have a friend who is crazy. Knowing what I know now, I don’t think I would readily make friends with someone with a mental illness. It is too hard on your heart. I met her at a time when she appeared sane and she was beautiful. It is hard to remember her then. She is distraught even when she isn’t going through anything. Every time she goes through a break-down, it is completely different than it was before: one is sad, one is frantic, one is mournful, one is bizarre. She is easier to remember like this. Every time she has one and comes through she vows it is the last one, the crazy is all out of her now.
She tries to hide when she knows she is losing herself. She doesn’t like it for us to see her falling and when she gets there, she can’t function enough to bring anyone in. I have seen her falling several times. It is always brought about by some event, as far as I can see. Too much time alone, an intense drawn out fight with a member of her family, death. She starts to spend time more and more time alone It usually starts on the weekend, when she doesn’t have a schedule or have to go into work. I have seen her right before she crashed when she was cleaning the house. She was a whirlwind, she couldn’t slow down. She obsessively cleaned every little thing. Then she collapsed and wouldn’t eat for days.
When she is rational, she explains to us how she does not want to get into the mental health system here because she has no faith in it. She’s tried it before and fallen through the cracks. She says that is what saved her and kept her alive this long. We all care for her when she is broken and talk about it amongst ourselves, knowing that there is a point where we will have to bring her in somewhere and knowing she’ll be gone after that.
She called me this weekend and said that she needed help. It scared me because she never asks for help. I went over and found her shaking. She told me that she was so sure that the last time was going to be her last crazy. She asked me how many types of crazy she has, and when will she meet them all. She was holding her thumb in her palm and her hand was crusted with blood. She yelled at me to take my dog away and then she stopped talking to me. She walked around the house from window to window, looking outside. Her eyes were open so wide that the iris was surrounded by the white of her eye. She usually is so still when like this and I didn’t know how to deal with her movement. I watched her and wondered if this was the time we were going to have to say good-bye to her.