Reasons the sound of crying makes me feel violent

TW: A lot of suicide talk. Some drug talk towards the end.

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I don’t know where else to put this – this is something very personal to me, and I don’t want people to scrutinize every aspect of it like they do when I try to tell them in person.

I’m gonna start out by saying that I have lived an objectively privileged life, so I apologize for anything that comes off as bratty and entitled here, there are moments where I don’t realize, and I’d love it if you could point those out. However, a few incidents stuck in my mind, and I don’t know where else to share them.

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When I was 7, my parents were out for the afternoon and I was relaxing at home, when the landline rang. My best friend (8) at the time, who lived/still lives 5 houses away, was calling. I picked up, expecting to hear her ask if we could go to the park later. Instead, all she said was “Don’t miss me” and hung up. I was completely panicked, and ran to her house, but by the time I got there she was standing on her roof, looking down. That whole day is a blur in my head right now, I remember crying, screaming, and trying desperately to get her back inside; I was too scared to go on the roof with her. I stayed there for I don’t even know how long, I just remember hiccupping and crying, and once a neighbor saw it, they got her back inside.

I didn’t know what to feel, anger? sadness? should I stay there?

This same friend was always the reckless type. She started blowing ~20 year olds in 7th grade (i only found out years later, when it was too late to do anything since she hardly remembered the names), got emotionally attached to guy after guy, dated a literal attempted murderer for 3 years (8th to 11th grade)… Hell, I don’t want to list it all over here. The point I’m trying to make is that whatever mistakes she made, she’d unload it all on me. Maybe I was an enabler, maybe I was just a pushover, but I listened. I gave advice at first, but i just gave up eventually. What was the point? She never listened when I tried to help, so why do the extra work when it gets thrown away?

She got cancer in 2019. I supported her, stayed for whatever she needed, because that’s what friends do.

2020 – remission and she started smoking. She’s back to her old ways – attachment after attachment, leading guys on (genuinely leading them on – “I love you” and “You’re my everything” are phrases she throws around like “nice weather we’re having!”) and ghosting them last minute, then treating me as if I’m a journal.

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I was 15 here – my friend and I were travelling for a MUN conference. We were lying down in the hotel room when her shirt rode up a little, I reached down to fix it and it was moist. There was blood on my fingers, she’d cut her hips. There were scars. She’s carved “fat” on one side and lines on the other.

Again, I had no idea what to do. Second I saw it, I fought with her – forcing her to clean it while I used her phone to call her parents. The panic I felt that day… I hadn’t felt that in years.

She started drinking heavily (surprisingly her parents just *let* her) that October. A matter of months, then I barely recognized her anymore.

The same year, before my history prefinal, my only other friend at the time listed all her suicide attempts.

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My best friend in the world’s life went downhill since 2018 (we were 16). She spiraled, depression, ocd, anxiety, now split personality and bpd.

She means the world to me, truly she does, but she tells me I’m the only one that can “control the others in her head”. I try, because she’s important to me, but there are times I wish I could leave. I don’t want this, I didn’t sign up for it. I didn’t get a choice, I just was the one that had to deal with them all.

Even the “Little kid” and “the suicidal one”, both of whom are angry and scream at me more than they talk.

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I turned to roleplay – specifically, motley crue roleplay. Acting like Tommy Lee, making jokes on group chats with people who had Axl Rose and Vince Neil pfps really took my mind off, and I could melt away into roleplay at first.

For almost a year(2020, surprisingly), I could relax, finally have the weight of being responsible for people I cared for off my shoulders. I even had a relationship – a couple (J(M22) & E(M20) at the time) I was close with and I were in a relationship. It felt so surreal, I had a best friend (H, M20) I could talk to about anything, a wonderful relationship…

In December, J and E died within week of one another. I last spoke to J on December 16th, E on December. I had known J was depressed, and E had substance abuse issues, but I could never have imagined losing them to it after 3 months together. I was in denial for so long – I had stopped eating, then randomly I would eat everything I could see. I felt sick, all the time. Even when I just told myself they were “probably at rehab/the facility”.

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I think the final straw, the one that broke the metaphorical camel’s back, came in the form of Ash, who I also met through roleplay. I don’t care that I’m using a name instead of a representative letter, after everything he’s not entitled to anything from me anymore.

I talked to Ash for about ~11 months, mostly about music and movies. He seemed like an okay person, but I never felt close to him. I assumed it was all chill, until one day he spammed me with the crying emoji. Bear in mind this was maybe 2 weeks after I started talking to him.

I comforted him, waiting till he was okay before turning my phone off and keeping it aside. I hate when people cry – it always ends with me feeling like shit so I avoid it as much as possible.

After this, he does the same thing repeatedly – to the point where it’s impossible for me to even get a sentence or two in without him sending pictures and audios of him crying. I repeatedly told him to stop doing that – I could handle text, but pictures and audios make me especially sensitive and I hate the way it makes me feel. He didn’t. He sent me pictures of his arm, slashed all over, bleeding.

It continued for months before he had a new tagline – “You never cared about me”. Whenever I wanted to take time to myself (aka not talk him out of suicide every 3 days), I’d get several variations of that line, over and over again, to the point where I just gave in to whatever they said, staying up till 5, 6 in the morning (even though I had classes ~7 every day at the time) to make sure they stopped crying and spamming me with those audios.

It got to a point where I’d stopped eating unless someone made me, and I’d tried to block him – but his friends would make alternate accounts and text me saying he was saying dangerous things and it would be my fault if anything happened to him.

I was at a complete loss as to what to do. One day he dropped a bomb on me – he had some sort of crush on me, and was trying to make sure I could “Handle” him before he said anything. This could not have come at a worse time – my boyfriends had recently died and I was still grieving. I snapped, telling him to essentially just leave me alone. He vanished for days, messaging me later and graphically describing his suicide attempt, saying he’d never have done it if I listened to him, and “cared for once”. He told me he ran away, to be with his toxic, abusive ex – because I didn’t like him back. I WAS GRIEVING AT THE TIME. I’d just LOST TWO PEOPLE to suicide. And he was using suicide as a threat.

I think I broke then. I was docile, basically an enabler. Just listened to him, let him take out whatever he wanted.

I don’t even think I realized this. It was H (the best friend – he’s changed my life for the better since I met him. I’m much more confident, but that’s another post for another time) who did – he talked to me till I told him about Ash. He was livid – I don’t think I’ve seen him that angry on anyone’s behalf before. I think that’s when it sank in, that till that point, I’d had hardly any real friends. Ash definitely wasn’t one.

A month later, I told him outright that I wasn’t his therapist, i was his friend. If he wanted a therapist, he’d better get one, because I had my own life as well. If he wanted someone who’d coddle him, he’d have to keep looking because that’s not the person I am, and he should find someone else to cry to constantly, someone who could handle it – and he went ballistic – sending me audios and videos of him wailing, then cutting. His cousin told me he ran away from home, and I honestly couldn’t care less. I blocked them all, and I’ve felt lighter ever since.

(i had posted a very condensed version of ash on aita wheb i was having doubts about what i did. Much after i got him out of my life)

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That’s when the decision really solidified for me. I’ve held people’s lives in my hand, always against my will. Till this point, I had thought hey, maybe I might be able to foster older kids one day, when they need more mentoring-and-a-roof and less help-navigating-the-whole-world-and-how-it-works. After this, I think something clicked within me. I’m never going to be in the position where one choice can change another person’s whole life, ever again. I’m never going to put myself in a place where I need to manage another person’s emotional needs, I just can’t handle it.

Over time, I think it started close to the first incident, I’ve become more withdrawn – more analytical, and I try to distance myself from other people’s emotions. “Being there” for someone is now solely reserved for the people that have showed me they care about me, not just what I can do for them.

I’ve put on a life’s-a-race facade, I’ve convinced my own family it’s really who I am. It works – when I don’t want to feel, I drown myself in work. I post those god-awful hustle culture quotes on my insta stories, mainly as a reminder to myself. I need to keep working on something, or I get so overwhelmed I break down crying.

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I have come to despise the sound of crying. The second I hear it – especially wailing – I can’t help but be ready to scream at a person. On occasion, it’s gotten so bad I punch walls till my knuckles bleed, though of late I have been better at controlling it, despite still feeling rage when I hear crying. I never want to hold someone’s life in my hands again. I’ve done it too many times already