Dear Santa,
It's been a long time since I've written to you. Not since second grade, I think, when I asked for that Star Wars Star Destroyer play set. I was mad at you for a long time for not coming through on that one, but now I need you for something much more important.
My best friend, who I'll just call M, is in a psychiatric hospital. And I'm afraid he is not coming back.
It all started six years ago. Well, in truth it started way before that. All M's life he has tended toward the gloomy. He was a glass-is-half-empty kind of guy, I guess. Perhaps it stemmed from childhood loneliness and insecurity, or a mother who struggled with mental illness herself. Whatever the reason, M was never the sunny, optimistic sort. But he was smart and funny and thoughtful, and all around good guy and someone you were lucky to have as a friend. He met a girl with whom he fell head-over-heels in love, and they settled down to start a life together.
Until six years ago, when it all ended. M was blindsided when she left him, he had not seen it coming. He had thought they were happy and content, and in fact had recently bought a new home. But it turned out there was somebody else. She left him.
Words cannot sufficiently convey just what her departure did to him. It is hard to understand from the outside, how someone can love someone else with such power and totality that you lose yourself to it. Or perhaps that's what love is, and most of us have never experienced it. If that's the case I hope I never do.
When his wife left M was destroyed, utterly and completely. It was like his soul was shattered. The man I knew was no longer there, in his place stood a walking ghost. He didn't eat, didn't sleep, didn't do much of anything but hole up in his apartment and think about her. When I saw him, which was rarely, all he could talk about was her. All he could think about was her.
It seemed to me that his love had turned to obsession, and it was consuming him. I was worried, so were others. We pushed. And to his credit, he did seek help. He went to a psychiatrist and tried a variety of medications, therapies, and treatments, culminating in ECT (Electro Convulsive Therapy — "shock treatments"), and for a time he did seem to get better. He came out of his shell, even began dating again. But every relationship was ruined by the fact that, in the end, she wasn't her, the one who left him. And each time the darkness came back, it seemed to last a little longer. As each successive treatment failed to bring the long sought-for relief, M seemed to die a little bit inside.
For the past several weeks he has been inpatient at a psychiatric hospital. Each time I see him I keep hoping to see some progress, some positive sign that he will be able to find his way out of his own personal darkness. I wish I could help him, but I can't see the things he sees. He seems to be slipping farther and farther away.
So bring him back if you can, Santa. Or at least let him know that we miss him. Do that, and we'll call it even on the Star Destroyer.