It started slowly, so slowly I didn’t even notice at first. That’s not true, I noticed but I blamed it on being busy, or wanting to wait until tomorrow when I’d have more time. Tomorrow became next week, and then just one more day would pass. We used to talk every day. We’d bounce a ridiculously long email trail back and forth while we worked. Catching each other up on our days, our families, our husbands, whatever we had going on that day even if it was the most mundane things.

She was the first person I wanted to reach out to when something good happened. She was the first person I turned to when life was in the toilet. We were as close as sisters, nothing was too personal to share. She was happier for my success than I was, and I was happier for hers than she was. We were each other’s biggest fans and most ardent believers. We told each other our crazy dreams, that thing we secretly wished for in life. We knew each other’s deepest secrets and biggest fears.

And then…she wasn’t the same person anymore. Her light dimmed, her smile faded, and she went from standing beside me to leaning on me so hard that I couldn’t hold us both upright. I started making excuses for not calling her, for not sending her an email. I started to distance myself from her because the depression that had a hold of her would grab me too if I got too close.

Now she is the person who will wallow in her own depression to the point that I can feel it starting to suck me in. I call her filled with happiness and hang up overflowing with sadness. Like I am trying to save a drowning person but instead, I was getting pulled under too. I’ve battled my own demons and I’ve pulled my own life back from that abyss, that black hole that tricks you into thinking there’s no way out. I know the signs, and I feel the sadness whenever I talk to her now.

They say when someone is drowning you should not get in the water with them, you should try to rescue them from the side, where it’s safe. Now I know why. Because the feeling of being dragged under the water with someone you’re trying to save is terrifying, and the most helpless feeling in the world. That is how she makes me feel. I pull her up, and she pulls us both back down, deeper than before. Until the water is no longer cool, but cold and foreboding. I can’t swim hard enough to save us both, and she’s not swimming at all.

I offer suggestions. I offer resources. I say talk to your doctor, ask about a prescription, she says she doesn’t want to take a pill, she wants to get better on her own. I tell her I love her and that I’ll do anything for her and she says she’s just going to drown anyway because it’s too hard to do anything more. She can’t see a way out of her unhappiness, of her miserable life and her soul-sucking depression, and for that reason, I have to take a step back. I still love her, but I have to keep my distance, at least for now. I have to stay far enough away that her depression can’t pull me under with her.

I’ve tried for years to prop her up, pull her out, get her help and the time has finally come for me to accept the truth. She doesn’t want help, and she doesn’t want a way out. Her depression is something she wears like a coat of armor with me. She is more miserable, unhappier, and more depressed than I am. It’s not a contest, and neither of us is going to win. If I am happy, she is sad. If I am unhappy, she is miserable. If I say things will get better, she says not for her they won’t.

The hurt I feel is palpable, I feel her pain, and I feel her sadness. I know what it’s like to be unhappy in your life, your marriage, and your job. I want her to get out of all of them, but then I see her posting on Facebook about how her husband is her soulmate and she can’t wait to spend the weekend away with him. That same weekend she told me she was going to do nothing but sleep because she’s too depressed to get out of bed. That same husband she told me makes her feel worthless and lonely in her marriage. The smiling photos contradict the messages I get about how she cries all the time. Which one is real? Which one is honest? Is she miserable or is it a game she plays for my benefit? Does she really have the perfect marriage, the perfect life, and wouldn’t change a thing? Or is she so desperate to find a way out she can’t think about anything else? If she really is so miserable, why does she pretend to be happy for the rest of the world?

That false happiness, that fake smile and the phony declaration that everything is better than ever makes me angry. Angry that she puts effort into pretending but no effort into trying to make things better. Effort into excuses, but no effort into helping herself.

I can’t hold her up anymore or we’re both going to drown. I have to swim. I have to stay on the shore where it’s safe until she is ready to fight for herself as much as I’m willing to fight for her.

Depression has stolen my friend from me, and I won’t let it steal me too.