Best Friends Last Forever ✔️

Part 34: Research

TW
They laid in bed. Andrew's arm was around her waist and he was sound asleep. She carefully slipped away and replaced herself with her pillow which Andrew immediately pulled closer to him. She smiled at him before quietly opening the door. She slowly walked down the hallway on tiptoes, not wanting to wake the kids or Amelia and Maggie. When she was downstairs she got all books she could find about mental illnesses from her time at med school in the shelf in her mother's old office. She placed them on the table of the living room, sat down on the couch and pulled her laptop onto her lap, opening an empty page, starting to write down her symptoms.

- fear of gaining weight

- fear of being left

- mood swings

- feeling of losing control

- scared to be alone

- nightmares

- dependency

- panic attacks

- overthinking

- oversentimental

Okay. That's everything so far. Tears were already streaming down her cheeks as she took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down. This would get hard. She would have to face the truth.

She grabbed one of the books and opened it, scanning the table of contents for eating disorders. She skipped to the page and started reading.

Ten minutes later she had noted everything down she needed. Okay. She had an eating disorder. The fear of gaining weight, the panic attacks and the overthinking as well as the oversentimentality were typical symptoms. But this was just one half... There were still a bunch of other symptoms that weren't covered.

She opened another book. This one was structured according to the individual symptoms and the corresponding possible diseases. Starting with the mood swings she read the most important things down and listed the illnesses that came along with the symptoms. She did this with every single symptom and looked which diseases were listed most.

So there was:

- borderline

- anxiety disorder

- depression

Borderline. A personality disorder. But she wasn't suicidal... right? No. NO! No suicidal thoughts. She wasn't self-harming. She had thought about it but- she didn't do it. Yet.

There was one time... When she was 14 years old she had a pretty bad depression after the biggest fight she'd ever had with her mother. Her mother had told her how much of a failure she was after she didn't pass a test at school. Her own mother told her how much she regretted having her at all. Even if this was nothing new... This day had felt different. Worse. She had stolen one of her mother's scalpels and had made five small cuts on her left arm. Not once. It took her two months to stop her from hurting herself. Well- Andrew... It took Andrew two months to stop her from self-harming.

She hadn't had come to school for three days so Andrew had come over because he was worried. He had found her in bed, fully awake but unresponsive. He had lied down with her, took her in his arms and talked to her. For hours and hours, he had talked to her until she had fallen asleep. He had stayed the whole night just holding her.

The feeling of cutting had been so liberated. It made everything easier. She didn't even felt the pain at all but it was relieving.

After one week where she hadn't been going to school at all Andrew made his mother come over because he didn't know what he could do anymore. He had come over every day after school, stayed the night and went to school in the morning. Even if he hated leaving her alone like this he couldn't not go to school.

His mother had talked to Meredith and offered staying at their house for a while. So she moved over to the other side of the street and Andrew's mother took care of her while Andrew was at school.

At first she didn't felt confident about cutting at Andrew's house but after two days she could no longer resist the pressure. In the middle of the night she went to the bathroom and started cutting. It felt so good. So relieving. But then... suddenly the door had opened and Andrew had come in. He spotted her on the floor and saw the blood. He quickly closed the door and kneeled down beside her, he had asked her to give him the scalpel but she had just shook her head, grasping onto the scalpel as if her life depended on it.

Two months. It took two months until she was better. Maybe... maybe it could help... she remembered the feeling. She knew that it was wrong. She was a surgeon. Cutting was her job. Bu not cutting herself.

She quickly closed all the books, put them back into the shelf, deleted the open tabs and pages on her laptop and went back to bed... Silently crying herself to sleep.

__________

"Mer, wake up, it's 10am already. Your appointment starts in an hour." Andrew said, as he carefully planted multiple kisses in her hair. In response she just pulled the blanket over her head and turned away from him. He sighed, resting his head on his hand while looking down at her form under the comforter.

"We have to get up" he repeated, rubbing her arm but she didn't reply. "Mer come on" he said again after a few minutes. He got that it wasn't easy for her and that she was scared of the diagnose because it would all come true but still... over the time he somehow got slightly annoyed.

"Meredith" he said again, his voice now a little more forced. "I know that it's not easy but you have to get up now. C'mon stop being so stubborn." He said, the last part with gritted teeth. But she still didn't move. "Meredith!" he said again after a few minutes of silence, his voice now slightly louder than before. She flinched and started shaking under the blanket before quickly standing up and running into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. He instantly felt bad for yelling at her and got up, knocking onto the door.

"I'm sorry Mer, please come out" he said but he didn't get a response.

On the other side of the door Meredith sat under the sink, breathing heavily, a scalpel in her hand.

What do you think? Part 35,36 and 37 are already written but I'd like to hear your opinion on this =)

TO BE CONTINUED...