Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

PANS has beat me down and broken me so many times in the past decade, I’ve lost count. Sometimes I feel as if the pieces of me that were supposed to make me who I’m meant to be got lost somewhere in the wreckage. As if they’re somewhere in the ashes in my wake—the ashes of the girl I was, the lives I’ve built and broken and built again. It feels like every time I go to a new school, a fresh start, only to fall on my face again, I leave a part of myself behind. Every time I make friends, only to watch them leave when I let them down again and again, to watch them move on with their lives as I’m stuck stagnant in pain, a piece of my heart is left in the ashes of those friendships.

I’ve watched so many friends leave me behind, because I let them down, because I couldn’t show up, because they couldn’t relate to me anymore, that the circumstances bleed together in my memory. I’ve started over in so many different schools, environments, friend groups, only to slip out the cracks before too long, that I’ve become a master at disappearing. I’m the island in an ever flowing river, and they’re the pebbles that wash up on my shore—good company for a little while, but eventually they’ll move on, and I will stay.

I know I say this all, as if I have no friends that have stuck with me—but that isn’t true. I have a handful of friends that have stuck with me, not given up on me, worked to keep our friendship alive. I have friends and family that will swim against the current to stay with me. It’s just, when I look back, I’ve had a hundred people leave to every one who stayed. I’ve had a dozen friends who never bothered to look beneath the surface to every one who fought to bring me out of my shell.

I guess it’s taught me who my real friends are. It’s taught me how superficial teenagers can be—not wanting to be friends with the freak who disappears, has panic attacks, and isn’t ashamed of her imperfections. It’s taught me that my family will always be there for me—my cousins, who are like my sisters, my aunts and uncles and grandparents who pray for me and encourage me. My parents who have spent hours in doctors offices, thousands on medical bills, and all the time in between appointments taking care of me. And my brother, who, at 13, is annoying and drives me crazy as you’d expect, but has never once complained about the special treatment I receive, has never once said, “if Kaley doesn’t have to do chores, I shouldn’t have to!”

I honestly couldn’t tell you where I’d be without my family. If it weren’t for them, I think I’d only be left with a few shards of myself, slivers of wicked sharp glass, harming everyone and everything around them, waiting to fall into pieces until there is nothing left.

PANS/PANDAS is an awful thing to live with. It wears me down to tears and broken pieces, and on the days when I’m not strong enough to piece myself back together, my parents, my family, my friends, have done it for me. With them, no matter how lonely I feel, I’m never alone.

People will leave, because they don’t care anymore, because you grow apart, because it’s too much for them, too real. And it hurts, but there are always those who stay, if you look. The people that stay are the ones that matter. They’re the ones who will put you back together every time you fall apart. They’re the ones who will let you cry on their shoulders when live tries to break you. They’re the ones who have kept me going through all the flare ups, all the ups and downs, all the tears and screams and sleepless nights, and they’re the ones who will keep me going, who will stay with me.