We've heard the quote. “'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”, from the poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

The esteemed poet is wrong.

I struggle with depression, and have been told that mine is a fairly textbook case. Voices in head, suicidal thoughts, apathy; the whole fun package. My cousin introduced me to a boy who seemed normal and kind, trustworthy and all that. I was told that Aiden (the boy) had a version of an alternate personality disorder. Every night, Aiden would be taken over by one of two persons, either John or Jack (all names mentioned have, of course, been changed). I spent some time with Aiden and quickly realized that yes, indeed, something that wasn’t him would speak through his body. As our friendship progressed, Aiden grew more and more depressed. He would often speak of suicide or self-harm, citing as reasons “nobody would care if I died”, “you would all recover quickly”, and so on. Each time, either Landon (my cousin) or I would be able to talk Aiden off the edge.

One day, as Aiden and I were texting (it’s worth pointing out now that he and I live in adjacent states, about an hour and a half apart, so most of our interaction took place through text), he told me that he loved me and asked me to be his girlfriend. I asked for some time, because I wasn’t sure how I felt, but within a week I was certain. I had fallen for Aiden, and fallen hard.

He and I were together for some time. We were happy, although irked that we lived so far apart. Everything seemed good; Aiden spoke of suicide less often, the voices in my head quieted, Landon was doing okay in school. Then Aiden’s baby sister fell ill with a life-threatening fever. She recovered, but suddenly John and Jack appeared more frequently and showed darker sides of themselves. John would treat everything as a scientific study and all people as subjects in experiments. Jack would manipulate everybody around Aiden to either drive Aiden closer to suicide or to abandon him. I stayed up nights with them, constantly pleading with Aiden to not end his life, begging Jack and John to leave him alone. My grades began to decline, but I didn’t care; to me, Aiden’s life was worth more than any geometry test. As Aiden struggled, so did I. Every night, I would fight two battles, one with Aiden and one with myself, both for lives.

After some weeks, he began to recover. He tried to help me, even to the point of offering to cut himself with me. “It will be easier for you to follow my lead”, he said. I refused his offer, of course. What caring person offers to help harm their loved one? That night, I began to doubt Aiden, for the first time listening to the voices when they told me he was lying about almost everything. I didn’t voice my doubts; after all, I still loved him, or thought I did. One of the two. I’m still not sure which it was.

A few days went by, and I found that my feelings for Aiden were slowly declining. I fought it, because he kept saying he loved me, and I didn’t want to hurt him. But then he texted me and told me that he had something to tell me. Apprehensively, I asked what exactly he needed. In response, he informed me that he would only tell me if I broke up with him. I realized that here was the opportunity I needed, since to continue being his girlfriend would be to live a lie. I still wanted to be friends with him, and I thought that it would be better to end us there rather than put up a charade. He kept pressing me to break up with him there and then, and sorrowfully I agreed. As soon as I had told him yes, I’m sorry, it’s over, he told me that so much had been a lie. Jack, John, depression, suicidal thoughts, bloodlust (he often confided to me that he wanted to drink the blood of others/kill others), family issues: all lies. In his words, “I’m just a simple boy living a simple life.” When I asked him why he had lied, why he had done this to me, he responded with “Oh, I thought it might help.”

Let me say here that it is never okay to counterfeit a mental illness to get sympathy, get the girl, experiment with how you’re treated, or anything else. Never. When Aiden told me that he had been lying, I lost it. I broke down, I cried, I almost killed myself right there, because I had trusted everything to him. I had lost sleep. I had cried countless tears. I had almost called the cops hundreds of times. But all I could put in the text box was “Why? I don’t understand.” His response? “It’s helped so many others to think that I have the alternate personalities. I wanted it to help you too, but I just couldn’t keep lying. I still love you, Charlotte. I will always love you, as a boyfriend, a husband, a brother, whatever you want. Will you stay by me? I’ll give you some time to think.”
He had been my rock of strength through everything, somebody who I could be strong for and somebody who would be strong for me. And now he had told me that every time I chose to believe him, I had been wrong. That I had been putting my trust in the wrong person. That every time I had fought with Landon over getting help for Aiden because he hadn’t seen sides of Aiden that I had seen, Landon had been right and I had been wrong. That I had caused Landon unnecessary worry. I was furious, I was confused, I was heartbroken. I cried myself to sleep that night for the first time in years. Ironically enough, I also got more sleep that night than I had in the past few weeks, probably combined.

In the morning, Aiden texted to ask if I’d made my decision. All the emotions from the previous night crashed down on me and without responding, I blocked him on every platform I could. SMS, Google Hangouts, Steam… everything. I went through my day normally, pasting a smile onto my face, saying I was “good” when people asked how I was, laughing at all the right moments. Inside, though, I was crying all day. When I got home, my close friend Gabe told me that Aiden had asked him to tell me that he was sorry. I stopped crying and let the fury take over. Poor Gabe bore the brunt of my pent-up rage as I told him (in no uncertain terms) exactly what Aiden could do with his apologies.

It’s going to be a while until I can trust again. Since his betrayal, I’ve questioned everything my friends have told me. I’ve been told that I’m being really rude, asked what is up with my sudden suspiciousness (okay, not the word she used, but you get the picture), but I just shake my head and apologize and ask again.

Aiden told me once that “broken girls are more fun. Because then you get to pick them up and put them together again, like a jigsaw puzzle.” I recognize that he probably meant well. However, what he did is not okay, has never been okay, and will never be okay, at least not by my standards. You can help more people by being who you are and showing your own strength than by lying about being broken and needing help. Regardless of his personal likes, dislikes, motives, et cetera, it doesn’t erase the fact of his betrayal, nor does it excuse his action. Nor will it ever excuse any similar action.