Renee was always unhappy. I never understood how someone so beautiful and so blessed could be so unhappy. To the world, Renee seemed to have no worries. She had an amazing family who loved her and would do anything for her. She had plenty friends who enjoyed her company and she was often invited to parties. She even had a boyfriend who cared about her deeply and was as handsome as she was pretty. She was a straight A student and a great field hockey player. So what went wrong? Her life was seemingly perfect! But inside Renee’s brain, everything in her life was wrong. She had convinced herself that her parents’ love was frustration, her friends’ admiration was fake, and her boyfriend’s affection was his way of using her. Her grades started to slowly decline as she lost interest in learning, which she had used to love. She sometimes skipped practice and even when she scored a goal, she felt no joy. Renee grew distant. We had no idea what to do – it was clear that she had depression, but everyone assumed her life was great so no one questioned when she was “having a bad day”. Not even her boyfriend noticed the thin scars on her wrists.
But I did. I saw the scrapes and recognized her problem at once. It was then my mission in life to save Renee and I did. I pulled her out of that place. It took long nights of no sleep because I talked to her through every minute of those tough hours. It required several trips to burger king and a few emergency runs to the hospital. But through all of it, I was there. Most of her other friends, including her boyfriend somehow never found out and this baffled me. How could they not know?? She was so good at lying to everyone, except me. She told me everything and slowly Renee was happy again. It took several months, 13 to me precise and never once did it require medicine or a doctor. All it took was friendship.