I don't know why. I don't know how. But a horrible memory just resurfaced today.

I won't go into detail, mainly just cause I don't want to talk about it and bring it up even more, but I witnessed something no 14 year old should ever have to witness. At 14 years old. I'm 18 now.
I witnessed a lot of close friends, suffering with plagued minds and horrible urges. I watched a close friends mental state deteriorate to almost nothing. All during my formative teenage years. I've tried to block these memories out, but now I have suspicions that these are to blame for my mental state these days.

Why all this heavy stuff suddenly came up out of nowhere, I don't know. Not very helpful since I have exams to be studying for, but hey, what can you do.

I couldn't sleep last night cause I was scared of having nightmares about it. So yeah I'm very tired today. But I am feeling a little better. This memory still won't leave my head, but it's not baring as much weight as it was yesterday, so I'm going to type it out as best I can.

I'm going to have to substitute names for initials, otherwise this will get confusing.

So it was early morning. I was at school, waiting for my friends to arrive. I see E and H arrive, and H says she needs the bathroom, so we walk down the corridor to the bathroom. Me and E wait outside while H is in there. She takes a little while, so E opens the door to check if she's ok. We only got a glimpse, but H was clearly distressed. We knew she dealt with anxiety and stuff, so E said she's probably having a panic attack or something, so we stayed out to give her space. We wait a little longer, and she's still not coming out. So E opens the door again, and after a moment, we realise what's happening. H said something, which I can't type out cause it's too hard for me, but it was after that, that I knew what was going on. It was also at that point that the bell rang to signal the start of the school day. I froze. It's just my natural reaction to things like this. I'm terrible at dealing with these things. Luckily, E was a little bit better at this kind of stuff, and went to help H and keep her safe. Me being an idiot, and also traumatized, didn't even think of going to get a teacher or anything. Nope. I just went to form (like tutor). I stood outside, traumatised and zoning out. One of my other friends, K, came up to me, clearly seeing I was traumatized. All I could say was "H tried to kill herself."
We saw our tutor standing outside nurses office with 'the method' in her hand. I won't say the method, cause again it's kinda rough for me. But also it's quite important so I might bring it up later.
She walked past us into our room, and everyone was asking about it but she wouldn't answer anything. Our other friend A arrived, and I told him the news. We sat in tutor, crying together. Our tutor said to us.
"Why are you crying? She's ok!" And we said "it's just traumatic." Having a close friend do that isn't fun, even if they are alive and ok.

Now E and H's other friends Em and An got to stay in the school counsellors office for the rest of the day, or at least the first few lessons. But because I ran away, I didn't get to. Despite the fact I literally witnessed it, was clearly traumatised, I had to go to lesson. Had I stayed there, stayed with them, maybe I wouldn't have had to.

Luckily me and A were in the same class for the next 2 lessons, so the whole time we kept looking back at each other. I guess as a way to have comfort in the fact that each other was there. Idk what it was but it happened. I remember in maths, which I had right after, some dickhead was joking about suicide. Not fun right after what had just happened. I wanted to slap him round the face and scream at him. But I didn't. Cause that's just not me.

Anyway, that's about it for that story. It happened ages ago, and I should preface that H is alive and well. I haven't really heard from them in a while but from what I know they're doing better now. They left that school and went to one especially for kids/teens with mental health issues I think. Anyway, the reason she did what she did, was because she was badly bullied. Which when I piece the pieces together, it makes sense.
Warning, I am about to mention the method.
Basically what she did was inhale bleach fumes. Now here's why this makes it all make a bit more sense. When you think of people using bleach they usually drink it. But she just inhaled it. Which wouldn't really work as well. Which makes me think it was less a case of her wanting to actually die, and more just her crying out for help. Also the fact that she did it in a school bathroom where she knew we would be waiting outside.
Anyway. Yeah. I don't know if it did me any good writing it out, but it kinda feels like it. Though that day is just one of many. There's more where that came from.

For example, the one time I was in a design tech lesson with E and K, and E suddenly admits she self harmed. This one I have some different feeling towards. You see, this was around the time when mental health issues were seen as "trendy". So my theory is, she was doing it to look trendy. Cause after that it never happened again. But just a theory.

Now A was, to put it simply, a little messed up. He dealt with a lot of stuff. He had a lot of issues at home, he was in a working class family without much money, he was bullied quite a lot at school too. I don't want to paint him like some poor guy who just needs some sympathy. He isn't all good. He was somewhat of a compulsive liar. He would make up stuff, saying he followed one religion one day and the next he'd follow a different one. He told us(our friend group) he was trans, but now it's clear that he's not cause, well, he's still a guy. And from my experience he just seemed a bit... manipulative. But that doesn't take away from the fact that he went through a lot, while I think there was a lot he lied about, I'm certain those scars on his arm were real. And there was a lot. More than the three faint lines I saw on E's wrist that one time. He had a lot. He stopped for a while. Then one day had an incident where people were interrogating him about something until he supposedly passed out. The next day it didn't take long til I saw the scars on his wrist again. I remember in the summer when he was hot in a lesson the teacher told him to take his jumper off, but he wouldn't.
But that's not it. There was one night, when I got a call from one of my friends, Al(we'll come back to them later), which was strange because we never call each other, only text. When I answered they were clearly distressed. They'd already had a rough day. Again, I'll get to that later, but to top it all off, they'd gotten messages from A. I can't remember what they said, but I think you can imagine the kind of things it said. They desperately asked me to try calling him, but I couldn't. I knew if he answered I just wouldn't know what to say. So all I replied was "I don't think I can." They hung up after saying they were calling the police, and that was that. Again, A is alive and ok, but that wasn't a fun night.

Back to Al. They also went through a lot. Dealing with intense anxiety and depression after that one night, all alongside dealing with being transgender. I watched as one of my closest friends mental state deteriorated right in front of my eyes. I hated it. It sucked. They used to be so happy. And I saw as their mental health rotted away to nothing.
It all started on one night when they were on a school trip to see Matilda. But that night there was a terrorist attack. Just down the road from the theatre. Everyone from the school was fine, but I think that just shook them up so much, that after that they fell into a horrible spiral of intense anxiety and depression. So much so that they had to drop several subjects at schools and they were a promising student. But they couldn't meet their full potential all because of their mental health going to shit. Luckily I think they've recovered a bit now, and they're family has accepted them a bit more for being trans, but I don't know for certain cause the only contact I have with them is that I follow them on twitter.

I have one more incident that has had a lasting impact on me. I was part of a local production of Annie. One of the cast members, was always very quiet. She was the oldest there, (cause it was a youth production). I remember the first time we did a costume run. I saw out of the corner of my eye. I thought, "wait, what was that on her arm?"
After a closer look... I don't even need to tell you at this point. Her whole arm was covered in scars. I was still quite young at this point. I think it was before H's incident. It was rather scarring (mentally... sorry for the unintentional inappropriate pun). I remember having a shower after, and staring at the razor. I had an urge. And I hated it. I know just a shaving razor couldn't really do much damage but I was young.

There was SO much talk about mental health around me that I felt like I couldn't escape it. I love that mental health is being more openly talked about, but at the same time. It makes me wonder if I'd never been so exposed to it, would I ever have had those urges, would I have ever dealt with all this anxiety? I don't know. Something to think about.

Anyway, rant over.