y e n b lo a s c u u i r b n d s a e p stres n n o i t a l o s i s s n e o i e s n s l n a l r i p i u pa mental dou com gue fail an i b e t t a r f m r drowning failu depression a h f l e s doubt e n d a y s s t s e e i r e h w er ov t x s an ang
e guil g a m
sadness suicide alone bu rden
r e g n a
J
Mental health issues make it hard enough to take care of yourself – let alone your friendships. BY LILA REYNOLDS PHOTO BY EMMA DANBURY 42 | NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN
i y e r u d l i a bo f ane* was sitting in her apartment the night her roommate tried to kill herself. From her room, she could hear her friend struggling with a bottle of pills in their bathroom. At first, she wasn’t alarmed. ‘Okay,’ she thought, ‘she’s probably taking her meds.’ She heard some more rustling and the toilet flush. Then she heard the door to the back porch open and her roommate walk outside. Still in her room, she overheard her friend call her doctor to tell him she’d almost swallowed a handful of pills but spit them out at the last minute. Practically in front of her, Jane’s roommate Mia* had tried to end her life. And Jane had no idea it was coming. “I was trying to pay attention to those things that were off,” Jane says. “And for me personally, I’m trying not to be guilty and feel like a failure because suicide is never your fault as a friend. But I should know better.”
