Has a friend ever told you a secret that could be deadly? There are the secrets that my friends have told me, "I like insert name. Don't tell anyone. I would die!" But these aren't the secrets I'm talking about. It's the secrets such as, "I tried to kill myself last night on a drud overdose." Or "I'm bullemic. I don't want to be; just don't tell anyone." These are the secrets that you're confused about. Do you keep them and hope for the best; that one day your friend will kick her eating disorder and be normal again? Or do you tell an adult and get everyone involved?
I was in ninth grade when my friend confronted me about killing herself. Of course I wouldn't tell anyone; I wanted to help her and so I told her how I'd be so upset if she went through with it. After talking and spending a lot of time with her, she seemed to improve her mood and I knew things would be back to normal.
In tenth grade, my friend got a new job and started hanging out with kids that smoked, drank, and did drugs. She would say she was having fun, but I couldn't see how sneaking around and lying to her family was fun. She stopped talking to me, since she knew I didn't approve of her new change. I didn't realize how serious things were getting until the middle of the year. On a school trip she told me what was really going on. She told me that she was bullemic. I blew up at her. "Do you know what could happen to you! You could die! I don't want you to die! What can I do to make you stop?!" She said had only been battling it for a few weeks now, but that she needed my help. "Please, don't tell anyone," she said. "Just follow me after I eat and make sure that I don't throw up." Since I knew the consequences, I followed her. About a week or two after the trip, she called me to tell me that she had finally stopped.
Not every story like this has a happy ending; be there for your friends when they really need you.
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What can make helping your friends through something like that more difficult is if they won't tell you what's going on.
I'm really worried about my best friend. I know that something is going on, but I don't know what. People have come to me with their different suspicions...that she's being abused by her mother, she might be bulemic, etcetera...and I want to figure out what's going on so I can help. I already know she's battle bulemia at one point, and I'm worried she's fallen back into it.
But the only thing I can do is wait for her to tell me what's going on. It's frustrating beyond belief, but if I approached her about it, as another friend did, she's feel like she was being accused and wouldn't open up to me in the end. I just hope that I can manage to pull a happy ending out of this.
yeah that's definitely a tough place to be in...but I can tell you from being on both ends of it...tell someone...I had a friend that was cutting and doing drugs...I didn't say anything and they ended up dead...not to say it was my fault but I can't help thinking "if only I would've told someone." and I know that last year when I was doing...well...kinda the same thing...my best friend of two years went behind my back to tell my dad...I was crushed when I found out he'd betrayed me like that...and for a while there after my life was essentially hell...and while we aren't really friends anymore I respect him for what he did b/c my life is so much better now and I realize how important getting that help was...so even though someone may hate your guts for telling I recommend it every time in a serious situation.