Schizophrenia Stole my Best Friend

But we will always have Harvey Danger

Who do you trust more than anyone?

Paranoia, paranoia everybody's coming to get me........

Who knew a love for Harvey Danger when we were 12 years old would turn out to be a true story?

Amanda and I were inseparable and best friends for as far back as I can remember. We spent a lot of time together and we were more close than me and some of my family members. Her family treated me like I was family and would regularly have me over at the house. I enjoyed going to Amanda's house and being a part of their family. They had a lot more money than I did, and there was always something to do at her house. And the best part? She was allowed to drink soda. My parents wouldn't spend the money on it so it was kind of a big deal in Elementary School.

After my parents became divorced in third grade, Amanda and I began to grow closer. I would share everything with her and let her know everything that was really going on with me. No one else knew, not even my parents. When I went into 5th grade my mom had met a new man and we were all moving into a house that would take me out of the school district that I was going to for the past six years. My mom enrolled me with Amanda's address so I could continue out my fifth grade there. Everyday I would ride the school bus home with Amanda and we would spend time together until my mom would come pick me up.

After my parents became divorced in third grade, Amanda and I began to grow closer. I would share everything with her and let her know everything that was really going on with me. No one else knew, not even my parents. When I went into 5th grade my mom had met a new man and we were all moving into a house that would take me out of the school district that I was going to for the past six years. My mom enrolled me with Amanda's address so I could continue out my fifth grade there. Everyday I would ride the school bus home with Amanda and we would spend time together until my mom would come pick me up.

When I hit Middle School I was zoned for Golden Gate Middle School, which was really far away from the house where we lived, but it put me in close proximity to Amanda as she lived in Golden Gate also. I still went over to her house on a weekly basis and we would hang out. We did not go to the same middle school, but we always made time for each other. I remember one weekend all the girls that I was friends with at my new Middle School called me on the party line and set me up to talk shit about one of the girls who was sitting silent on the phone. They were drilling me over and over, trying to get me to talk shit about my Golden Gate friend, Reba. I finally broke down and called her a bitch, then heard her gasp on the phone. I had been set up with that dreaded three way call. Middle School girls were so horrible to each other. I was so heartbroken that Reba was mad at me. I fled to Amanda's house for the week, and didn't have to think once about those girls, she made it better. We listened to "Flagpole Sitta" by Harvey Danger on repeat that weekend.

Amanda was always so much smarter than I was. She would understand information so much quicker. She was in all the gifted and advanced classes, and she could play several musical instruments. Everything she did she was good at. Everything she tried on she looked good in. She was thin and petite, with wavy dark hair and dark eyes. I was the exact opposite. I was voluptuous with blonde hair and blue eyes. Together we were killers in the beauty department, and could win anyone over with our combined wit and charm.

In high school is when I saw the first sign sign that there may be something wrong with Amanda. She jumped on a Greyhound bus and left home, for no particular reason. After being gone for a week she called me on my cell phone from a payphone in a city that was 7 hours away. She told me that she wanted to start traveling, and met friends already that she was going to travel with. She had been sleeping on park benches, and begging for food. I called her mom right away and gave her the phone number to where she was so the police could go retrieve Amanda. After she returned home, she acted as nothing happened.

I went to college and got married. She was the maid of honor in my wedding. She would regularly come over and visit before that all through college up until the time that I got married. I did not even notice that we were not spending time together anymore. I was too busy doing what I thought a wife should do and giving every waking moment to the person that I had traded nuptials with. She had also been dating a man named Howard that I wasn't very fond of. He was into hardcore serious drugs like ecstasy and cocaine, and did not feel the need to have real goals in life. He cheated on her and I hated him for hurting her. She stayed with him, so naturally we started to drift apart.

During this time I started to hear stories from friends and family that she was getting more involved in drugs and became obsessed with her weight. She developed an eating disorder and I was told she wasn't doing good. I would try to call her, but she wouldn't take me phone calls. I tried to visit, but she wouldn't come out of her room.

About a year later I moved 3 hours away and tried to visit her before I left. Again, she wouldn't take calls, and I couldn't get ahold of her. Family told me that she was starting to act peculiar, and was sent home from work early one day because she said she could not see her hands. She was putting tape over her computer webcam, and thought someone was following her all the time.

After I moved I ended up getting a job with the Department of Children and Families as a child abuse investigator. About a year after I had been employed, I received a phone call from family that Amanda had been committed to a psych ward. I had to go back and see her to make sure that she was okay. I drove down home the three hours straight to her house to check on her. She allowed me in the door and told me that she had been committed because she was being accused of having an eating disorder. At the time I stopped by she was making a plate of vegetables with rice. I sat down at the kitchen table with her just to hang out and brought up what was going on in my life. I told her about my new job working for the local government and what I did on a daily basis. As soon as I mentioned that I had a position with a government program, she threw away her whole plate of food after only taking one bite. She then said that she was tired and walked straight to her room without saying goodbye to me.

After my visit with her I learned that she had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. It was all very confusing, and I did a lot of research on it because it did not make sense that she had been so normal our whole life growing up. After doing my research I learned that it happened with people though were extremely intelligent, and was a disorder that manifested later in life. It had then made sense to me why she freaked out when I mentioned that I worked for the government. After reading further about the disorder, I came to the conclusion she threw out her food after suspecting I did something to it. It was the paranoia part of te disorder.

Over the next couple of years she was regularly committed about once a year. I kept my same phone number since high school, and every time she was committed, I knew to expect phone calls from her. She would start the call after her medication would kick in, but then stopped just as quickly after she returned home and stopped taking her medication again. I wanted so badly to be able to help her but I was barely in a position to even help myself. She was there for me all those years when I had my painful middle school angst, the divorce of my parents, and even was my maid of honor in my wedding. After all that she did for me there was absolutely nothing I could do to return the favor to her. Her family does not try to even understand the mental health disease and how to help her cope with it. They have decided that there's nothing else they can do to try to help her, and ignore her phone calls and cries for help before she is committed. She has been arrested for calling the police too many times in a row because of voices that she was hearing. She has called in bomb threats, lived in her car, and went without anyone to protect her.

Amanda last called me about a month ago because she was committed again to an institution. I desperately tried to call her back but all the phone numbers that she left for me did not work. Nothing is more heartbreaking than seeing someone you love suffer, and there is nothing you can do to stop their pain. I will continue to keep this phone number turned on, for the rest of my life, so she knows that I love her. This is now our only link and lifeline to a friendship that was so deep and trusting for so long. As long as this phone number is on, I can't help but hope, she thinks to herself, the Amanda that I used to know, that her best friend is there or her. Forever and always.

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