Content warning: article discusses depression and suicidal thoughts.

Although I have always considered you to be one of my closest friends, we have definitely had our ups and downs throughout the years. You've never invited me places, you'd argue with me out of nowhere, and at times, you've even made me cry, only to tell me the next day how much you loved and cared about me.

I put up with all of this because despite how much you may have hurt me because when you were having a good day, things were great. I ignored all of the bad things as best as I could, chalking it up to you just having a bad day, being in a bad mood, or just dealing with the general stress and pressure of college life.

Over time, we grew to have a special bond with each other that seemed to be able to endure anything.

One night, you and I were just having a random, normal conversation talking about college memories and things that we had missed.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, you told me that when you had met me, you had been suicidal, and I was one of the reasons you decided to not go through with it.

For as long as I live I don't think I'll ever be able to forget the way reading that message made me feel. It was like I couldn't breathe. Like someone had knocked all the wind out of me. A mixture of fear and anxiety and sadness immediately raced through my entire body. The only other time I have ever felt that way was when I had received the news that my grandmother had passed away.

I had a million questions, but I didn't want to scare you away. Especially because as a fairly private person, you hadn't confided much at all to me in the four years since I had known you. I pictured your smiling, happy face, your bright, bubbly personality that always shined through, and I tried to connect this wonderful, beautiful, human form of sunshine with the most unthinkable, the deepest form of darkness.

My head could only form one clear thought, and that was to just tell you how much I loved you. I made you promise me that if you ever started to feel that way again that you would talk to me first. I made sure to let you know how much it would absolutely destroy me if I were to lose you.

All I wanted to do at that moment was hug you and not let go.

You responded a few minutes later saying that you had been crying and that you would never do anything because of how much I've shown you I loved you.

I can only hope that that's true.

I woke up in the middle of that night, unable to go back to sleep. I ran through every interaction I've had with you to see if there was something I had missed. Quarantine has given me way too much time to think, and I worry about you all the time. Sometimes, I fear that I will get a phone call or see a Facebook post that something has happened to you. I do my best to push those thoughts aside.

I don't want to go to your funeral, I want to go to your wedding.

I try to talk to you about once a week just so you know I'm there, but I'm also doing my best not to smother you either.

However, I still have a lot of questions, and there is still a lot I admittedly don't understand.

After you admitted this all to me, it completely changed my perspective of our friendship. It made me see you in a whole different light. It made the random arguments, the bad moods, the silent periods, all make so much more sense.

It had me questioning so many things. All those times you made me cry because you insulted me or ignored me one too many times — should I just pretend that never happened? Or what about the time you blew off my party last minute so that you could go to your other friend's party instead?

How am I supposed to know whether in these instances, and several others, you were having a bad day mentally, or you were just being a bad friend?

Can I distinguish you and your personality from your mental illness, or are they so intertwined for you that one completely controls the other?

I love you more than words can say, but I can't let you hurt me anymore.

Once, during an argument, you called our friendship toxic. And I was shocked — not because of what you said, but because it was the first time in a while that we have ever actually agreed on something. Knowing everything that I know now, I will readily admit that I must have made things hard for you at times over the years. But, all I have ever asked for, really, was to be better friends with you because a lot of the time you seemed to want to be around anyone BUT me.

When you told me that same night that I was one of your best friends, I was completely surprised. I have known you for four years, and I had absolutely no idea. At times, I would've thought you would've said the complete opposite because that's how you treated me.

Am I toxic for having only ever wanted a close, solid relationship with you? Am I asking you for more than you are able to give? Or, are you the toxic one for flat out refusing to do anything to change, even knowing that continuing hurts me?

I'm afraid to say anything to you anymore because I know you'll just bring up your mental illness to justify all of your reasonings, and how can I possibly deny that?

Sometimes, I don't know which parts of our friendship are real and not real anymore.

And while I acknowledge and respect that you have been suffering for quite some time, some of your actions have been incredibly harmful to my own mental health as well.

I just need you to know that there are times when I could really use some of the love back that I try so hard to give to you.

Are you physically incapable of doing so until you learn to love yourself first? Is it selfish to even ask? Or is it selfish of you to always make me push my feelings aside because what you're going through will always be worse?

I really don't know.

I want you to know that I'd do anything for you, even before I knew what I now know about you. I'll give you pieces of my heart so that you can fix your own with it.

In doing so, my heart has become full of holes that you are unable or unwilling to fix. And the more you ignore me, the more you act like you don't care about me, the bigger they grow. I fear that eventually, I'll have given you everything I had, and I'm empty, left with nothing.

I want you to get better. I hope you learn to love yourself as much as I love you. But just know that while I'm trying to take care of you, I need space to take care of myself too.

There needs to be some kind of balance, a mutual give and take.

Because as much as I'm afraid of how much you're hurting, I'm afraid of how much you could hurt me too.