I Regret Not Speaking Up.

Trigger Warning: Discussions of SA

I'm not going to try to be poetic here. I'm just going to be honest and real.

About two years ago, I had my first genuine friendship with a girl that I will call her Chloe. I'm going to keep her anonymous. This is not her real name. I knew when we first met, something clicked in between us, like a lightbulb starting to flicker after decades of being lightless. Keep in mind that we were young and we didn't know better about most life lessons. We met during school and I was surprised when she wanted to be my friend. A friend. I had a friend.

During the summer, things took an unexpected turn. This was when we were both struggling with our mental health, so we weren't at our best, and we knew that, but one thing I regret to this day was not properly communicating with her when things went wrong. There were countless days where the things she said offended me, and I regret not speaking up about it. I just let her continue to hurt me because I didn't know better back then. I didn't know how to stand up for myself. I was afraid of her reaction if I ever spoke up and created boundaries. I grew up in a household where expressing my feelings, especially my negative feelings, were invalid and that if I ever spoke up about my negative feelings, that was practically asking for a free punishment from your parents.

It'd gotten to the point where it was starting to truly affect me emotionally. I'm not saying that Chloe was the reason why at one point I was in my depressive state, but she was able to contribute to everything that was already adding up in my plate, when everything was so overwhelming for me. But back then, I didn't know how to open up, so I just essentially suffered in silence. There were so many stories out there talking about their bad experiences of opening up, and that eventually influenced me to not do the same.

Fast forward to a new year in school. It was a rough start. I was SA'd by a student. Before that time period, it was a family member. Multiple times. The student got away with it because I never spoke up. I never told my family about the family member one, but I told them about the student one. They didn't take it seriously. They assumed that the student just wanted to play with me and I was being the mean one but that wasn't the case. I was afraid of what was going to happen if I ever did. I told Chloe about it. Chloe then proceeds to make jokes about it. She also then proceeds to say that it wasn't even that bad. It hurt me. It really fucking did. And at that point, I just kept my mouth shut because I was afraid.

Thinking about it still made my heart turn into fragments.

I was thirteen.

All of this was because I was stubborn and I should've spoken up. I never spoke up about my problems and when I finally did, she invalidated all of them, stating that it could've been worse. Yeah, it could've been worse, but that doesn't change the fact that I was hurting. I knew she was hurting too. I knew we were both hurting. I knew that I shouldn't take everything so personally. But looking back at my old journals, back in the days where I would write about my feelings every time I got upset, I swear, there were so many times when I tried to justify all of her actions and blamed it all myself, because again,

I regret not speaking up earlier.

If I spoke up, all of the future conflicts could've been avoided.

I truly believed it was my fault. I really believed that it was my fault that she was saying those things to me. And honestly, part of it was. Because I never spoke up. I never stood up to myself. And even worse, when I noticed a change in her behavior, perhaps a more hopeless mood, I never spoke up. I never really went out of my way to ask how she was doing. That made me a bad friend. That made me an awful one.

I knew I was trying back then. I was trying, I really was. But the problem was, I didn't know how to love.

We then ended our friendship not even a year later. We couldn't last a year. A goddamn year. Eleven months, even. But I hated how I was so attached so easily because that was the first time that I actually made a friend. I was thirteen. Thirteen-year-old me never really had a friend. I was lonely. I thought I was finally out of that darkness. I mean, I was, for a short moment.

This is why I regret not speaking up.

But I don't regret regretting it. Because I'm older now. I know better now.

I know how to be a better friend.

I'm not a perfect friend, but I'm getting there.

I'm learning how to love.