My Soap Opera Story

I've had many a boy problem this school year. I always seem to go for the boys with some sort of peculiarity. It started just being religious peculiarities. See, I'm Catholic, so my uber religious friend didn't really approve of my romping about the town with an atheist. When he turned out to be a jerk, I set my sights on a Wiccan, but that was short-lived because he had a girlfriend. Now, it seems to be I've gotten into a guy who might just be my male counterpart.

I've had depression and anxiety since I was nine with bursts of other sporadic psychological issues. Last spring, I had a really bad flare of anxiety attacks and it was back to the pills. The constant change in pharmaceuticals led to a week long rendezvous at the psychiatric ward of a local hospital. Now that things are all straightened out, this guy comes in the picture.
He's exactly the kind of guy I would like. Punk kid with strong beliefs that he's never afraid of sharing, music addict like me, and he's super creative. We've gotten pretty close as friends over snarky comments and blank pieces of paper in history class, but a week or two ago I get a text asking if I "saw what he thinks I saw" in class one day. Of course, I'm not always observant and about half as perceptive, so I don't know. Though I've never been very open about my disorders, I talked to him about it because it felt safe to tell him. So last week, I text him after he was out of class one day and he says he's in the hospital because of bad panic attacks. Friday he's still not in school, but he says he's coming back Monday. Monday he's a no show. Tuesday he's a no show. Finally, today he comes back and comes to class late because he's been in guidance. He sits down and I know there is something off. Being that I've been around high people, I can tell he's on something. Four different prescription drugs that make him act like he's just smoked a super blunt. He confesses that he was in the hospital again Saturday night because his parents walked in on him cutting. Now, he's going to leave school early everyday for the next three weeks to go to intensive psychotherapy sessions.

Aside from the fact that this is bad, it's worse because I like him. A lot. It's hard to watch someone you care a lot about go through something you went through only months ago. Everything being still fresh in my mind makes it even more difficult. The pills make him an open book, and I can't handle the content because it kicks up memories of my self-harm that I've been desperately trying to bury. Meanwhile, I've been trying to rid my life of people that only flare my anxiety, and suddenly the guy I fancy is one of those people. It's been easy with everyone else, but for some reason it's hard to push him away. Mostly because I know what it's like to be in his place, and it's hard to go through it with no one there to sit and listen to you talk about it. That's the problem I had. Everyone wanted to be sympathetic and give me advice, but no one would just listen and accept it and not give me feedback. Maybe that's why I find him so appealing. Because he listens and teases me instead of trying to inject bouts of useless "logic" and lectures about how "it could be worse." That shit no one wants to hear and few people need to hear. We all know it could be worse, but maybe for the person who's talking to you that is the worst for them. So, I don't know what to do. I have to watch out for myself because I'm off one of my medicines, but I can't find it in me to just break our friendship or relationship or whatever complicated as fuck mess it is. This was really more for my own benefit, but my life is kind of a soap opera sometimes. Maybe you found it interesting.