By Ava West
People fall apart all the time. Friend groups fall apart all the time. I don’t know why I assumed mine would be different. I don’t know why I assumed I would be different. Senior year of high school, many things changed for me, and much of it was not my doing.
My best friend and I had been in the same friend group since eighth grade. I met her that year when I switched schools after a hard time at my previous school in seventh grade. It was like a coming-of-age story how fast we became best friends.
On the very first day of school, I was so nervous, I went right to class and found a seat by myself. Her, ever the extrovert, walked up to me and said “Is this seat taken?”
I said, “No.” She sat down next to me, and things went from there. I sat with her and her friends at lunch. And almost every class I was in, she was too, and we sat together. We told each other everything, and no one had ever made me feel that comfortable, that fast.
The friend group she introduced me to were all people she knew since kindergarten. And they were all so kind, all let me join right away.
So for the next five years, those were my people. My best friend and I did grow apart during different phases, but we always came back together.
Senior year though, things changed in our friend group. My friend confided in me, and another one of our friends, something very personal. Somehow, the story that should have only ever been hers to tell, was out. People talked, people over-heard, people listened, not really ever thinking about how it might affect her.
And the friend group that we had been so comfortable in, turned hostile. My best friend and I were isolated. It was disorienting for me, yes, but I can’t imagine how much more so for her. It wasn’t that they just cut us out, it was that they intentionally did things to make us feel bad.
So where school had once been a safe space, it was now a battlefield. With only a couple months left of senior year, I didn’t know if I would be able to get through the year. What was supposed to be filled with fun and celebration, was filled with confusion, hurt and anger.
Thankfully, my family was very supportive. They were all there for me, constantly doing little things to make me feel better.
I cried one day getting in the car after school, when my dad picked me up. We went home and he made me a cup of tea, and trying to relate to me, he said “What’s that one Taylor Swift song, ‘All you are is mean?’” I laughed with tears in my eyes.
Home was always a safe space for me, but during high school I did turn toward my friends more. But senior year, that clearly wasn’t an option anymore, so I settled back into home.
However, on my senior prom night, as I was getting ready (my best friend and I had barely decided to go), my mom fell and hit her head. We thought it was just a concussion, although she was in a lot of pain, so my dad decided to call an ambulance. After I was done getting ready, I went into the ambulance so my mom could see me.
We had picked out my dress together, a big pink one. My mom wanted me to have a magical prom if the rest of my senior year couldn’t be good. She said I looked so pretty, and I said I loved her.
She seemed pretty alright so I still went to take pictures with my best friend. We went to the Grand Rapids Public Museum and my sister was our personal hype woman and photographer. We had a lot of fun, posing with random things after a stressful year. After that, we went to the Downtown Market, where our prom was being held. My sister dropped us off, and my best friend and I went looking for food.
We were there for probably an hour when I saw my sister and my brother walking towards us. At first, I thought they were just crashing my prom, maybe there to tease me. So I smiled, but when I realized how sad they looked, my face immediately dropped.
My sister said, “Mom is having an emergency surgery, we’ve got to go to the hospital.”
It sounds cliche to say this, but it felt like time stopped. I looked over at my friend, her face had dropped.
I said, “I have to go,” she nodded and hugged me.
I had left my purse upstairs so I took my shoes off to run, my brother held them for me. I remember thinking, this is a very main character moment, and immediately feeling guilty for that.
My brother and sister took me home to change and grab some things to pass time at the hospital. We sat in the family area, and one by one, people started showing up. My aunts and uncles, my parents’ friends, my sister from out of town. The more people that came, the more real it got. I didn’t cry much in the car, I think I was still in shock. But once people started showing up, I couldn’t stop crying.
We talked about our favorite things about my mom in the waiting area, one of my parents’ friends joked that she was really good at reeling her finger up to flip people off. My aunt talked of her empathy, I can’t remember what I said, probably not much.
Finally, the doctor came out and told us that she was okay. She would obviously need lot’s of recovery time, but so far she was looking good. He told us she had fractured her skull and had a brain bleed. That if the ambulance didn’t come when it did, she may have died. He even called her break a “wicked fracture” which is now a joke in my family.
We were told that immediate family could come and see her, but only for a few minutes, she would need a lot of rest. We went up to her room, and it was all dark, there was my mom barely awake in the hospital bed. They had shaved half her head, she had just been growing her hair out. There were staples all the way up her scalp. She looked very small, lying there.
We all told her we loved her. We talked about the skull fracture, and she started crying, they must have told her before but she didn’t remember. Then the nurse told us it was time to go. It felt wrong leaving her there, all by herself, in pain, in the dark.
The next few days I spent most of my time at the hospital. It was my senior skip day, two days after her accident, so I spent the entire day there. My best friend texted me everyday to see how I was, even if there weren’t any good updates. I was so tired and mentally drained. My school was no longer safe, and my home was now on edge, full of reminders of my mom and her accident.
I felt very numb going to school and going back to the hospital and back to school, etc. My mom made great progress very quickly though, and was soon discharged. She was terrified to be driven home, any movement hurt her head. But she made it, and with lots of help, got inside.
Going to school felt odd, with all my ex-friends having heard what happened, but still none of them saying anything. My best friend was very kind and helpful, though.
The next few weeks, my sister, my dad and I took care of my mom. My sister took most of the work, but I helped where I could. Reading to her, spending time with her, making her food, whatever I could do when I was not in school.
As my school year finished out, there was the question of whether or not my mom would come to my graduation. It was a lot of work for her and for us to get her places, she now used a walker, and walked slower. But she was pretty set on attending, and I, of course, wanted her there. I wouldn’t have made it to graduation day without her.
My best friend and I had last names right next to each other, so we thankfully got to sit next to each other through the ceremony. When graduation was done, I felt a huge sense of relief. There were so many people I never wanted to see again, and finally the option would be up to me. I was college bound, and ready for a fresh start.
Summer passed quickly, my mom kept on improving, we were all so proud. I spent a lot of time with my best friend, going to concerts, walking my dog, watching movies, it didn’t really matter what it was. Then the school year came around. I thought I had time to process everything, but as I started at Grand Rapids Community College, I felt lingering bad feelings.
I was on edge all the time, looking for anyone from my high school and texting my mom to make sure she was all right. I felt irrational and paranoid, but no matter how I tried to comfort myself, my mind still told me I wasn’t fully safe. Even when I was sleeping, I couldn’t escape everything. I constantly had nightmares about my old friends and the night my mom fell. I got through the first semester, just barely. And, during winter break I had a check-up with my doctor.
The nurse gave me the depression and anxiety questionnaire, and I filled it out. I guess I finally let everything catch up to me. When my doctor saw my answers we had a long discussion, and we decided it was best for me to go to the emergency room and be evaluated further.
I spent most of the break going to different appointments, trying different techniques, getting evaluated and anything else that might help. Toward the end of break, I had an appointment with a psychologist, and after answering her questions, I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. A lot of guilt came with this diagnosis, I felt stupid for reacting this severely to two things that didn’t even directly happen to me.
But over time, and with actual talking, processing and crying over things, I began to get better slowly. There wasn’t a quick fix for what was happening in my brain, but taking each day, and looking forward, helped.
I didn’t have control of what happened to the people around me, or myself. But I could control how I handled the fallout. So, I wrote lots and lots of lists. To do lists, things I wanted to do in the future, lists of my favorite things, anything and everything to understand myself better. I hadn’t spent a lot of time with myself, I avoided my own company for a long time, just focused on caring for the people around me. But, I had clearly reached my limit.
I got to know myself. I went places alone. I tried different hobbies. I went back to things that I liked when I was younger. And, it was when I was getting to know myself, that I began to appreciate the people around me more.
My best friend, who had been through so much, checked in on me constantly. My mom, who had to start a lot of things over, in some ways, wanted to support me through my changes. My family stuck by my side through it all.
I had lost a lot of my community, but the important people in my life stayed. Quality will always outweigh quantity. Taking things day by day is not easy, but eventually it can lead to a way out. It led me to a way out of my own head and the places that haunted me, to the path toward my future.
