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My Incredible Story - Coggle Diagram

- - - - This political evolution lead to conflicts between me and her. She was pro-BLM, I was anti. She was pro-abortion and I was anti. I believed homosexuality to be sinful and she didn't. Worse of all was my transphobia; refusal to call transgender people by their proper pronouns, believing they were mentally ill, etc.
        
        The transphobia was the worst because, and I only found out recently that, she has dealt with and is dealing with feelings of gender dysphoria. This obviously meant that she couldn't open up to me about these feelings lest she face judgement and condemnation.
        
        I've spoken already about how much I admire her, that admiration makes this revelation so much more painful to me. This person who I love and admired could not open up to me when she needed it most? And that was my fault? Christ forgive me.
    - - Her kindness and niceness helped turn that intellectual interest in ethics to a practical interest. Her influence started off small at first. I saw how nice and kind she was and just started emulating some of her mannerisms. As I did that, I just sort of found out "Hey, this is so much better than being so mean and uncaring".
        
        After several months of personal character development, I came to know and recognise how much of an a**hole I really was. I talked about this with her too and she confirmed. Curious, I asked her why she still remained friends with me/didn't just cut me off. Her response was simple: Empathy. She noticed my mental health wasn't so good back when I was at school so she was worried about me. She was further scared of how I would fare alone during my cancer treatment so she stayed in contact with me just to make me feel less lonely.
        
        All this was just super inspiring for me. She inspired me to become(more accurately, strive to become) a better person. This desire was amplified by my religious awakening. While I was learning about Christ through the stories in the gospels, I also learned about Christ through her. Her charity, kindness and empathy make me so happy. I told myself 'I wanna be like her, I wanna be that kind and be that nice.' Christ-like, even.
- - - - There were several reasons I think why I took it so hard. First of all, I sincerely thought she liked me back. It's just that, she acted towards me with such familiarity, openness and comfort that no one had ever done to me. I didn't even think of the possibility of her rejecting me but it happened.
        
        I'm not writing that much detail but I don't want to understate how really painful that experience was for me. I felt deeply sad and really was in despair and depression. My concentration fell, my grades fell, etc etc. I really loved her(and still do). Another factor was that, I had very little non-family human contact besides isabelle. That I think starved me of human contact. So when I met her, I poured and projcet all my attention and my desire for companionship onto her. I didn't really make that many other friends, and no other close friends so this was a deeply hard time for me.
        
        Issa is not as kind or nice as Isabelle. She is now and she's always tried to be but, she's not perfect. After that very awkward confession, she basically ghosted me for 2-3 months? This did not help my sadness and depression and it really broke my heart. I had fallen into denial after that and that denial never really went away until recently this year honestly. That 2-3 months of ghosting should've broken that denial but no, I kept clinging to it for some reason. Just desperation I think.
        
        She's not a bad person I think. She just only really notices/realizes things once she sees it. She didn't see me crying in my private time or in depression. When I returned to school however she did see that and so she became much nicer to me and I really appreciated that
        
        There are many other things that happened since. I became fairly happy and fine until right after november ended where I suddenly felt this deep sadness and paranoia again. Throughout this time, I've also developed feelings of jealousy and envy for issa's other best friend and these feelings exploded suddenly(although I never showed it). For reasons that I know not, I began having suicidal thoughts every now and then. Note it wasn't serious/actual depression, I wasn't feeling lifeless or demotivated or had detailed and long thoughtout plans of suicide. But these thoughts I never had before, not even during the time when she was ghosting me. They scared me and really went away after Grade 9 ended.
        
        Around February, Issa and her other best friend started dating. They didn't last long as a relationship but, Jesus Christ, my heart fell apart. That was very temporary but still very painful and probably prolonged this semi-suicidal phase I was in.
        
        I really do love her. I actually remembered, when I found out I wasn't going to have any classes with her this grade 10, I wept for a solid 10 minutes? 15 even? I had advisory with her last year but no classes. Here I lost even that(a few days in school got rid of this sadness though thank God.
- - - - During my depressed phase I had thoughts that really didn't help my mental help and were really self-sabotaging. I told myself "you shouldn't be feeling these thoughts, it's been months you have to get over them" or "you have no right to be so bothered by such a minor problem while other people are suffering real problems. Original Sin helped dispel these thoughts away. Original Sin is a pessimistic view of the world which states that all humans are fallen, corrupted, have impure intentions and desires, etc etc. It is the belief that we are enslaved to death i.e we naturally do things that are very bad for us. This means we cannot save ourselves and need instead need a saviour.
        
        That saviour of course is Christ Jesus. The picture I loved most is of Christ dying on the Cross for us. The story of God, the Lord of the Universe, dying for our sins to save us, to be a ransom for us and take our place as the slave of death, filled me with so much hope and happiness. To know that, even with all my problems and wretchedness, God still loves me? That was mind-shattering to me. I took an attitude which basically says "If God can love me then dammit, I can atleast try myself." That really kept me going. It actually made this depressive episode very bearable. I developed a deep sense of empathy(which I've now unfortunately lost). I remember I used to be able to cry for a strangers, solely on the stories they told on text and discussion forums.
        
        Christ's grace and love was inspiring to me and I sought to emulate, just like Isabelle's kindness and charity. When issa's parents would abuse her(mostly verbally but sometimes even physically), I'd be there to help and be as understanding as possible. I'd try my best to be as kind as possible to strangers in the internet or new people in the friend group.
        
        Couple this with my experiences with heartbreak, Here I learned the importance of Gratitude. During what I went through, I developed a "be grateful for everything because one-day you will lose it" attitude. This has been lost during the semi-suicidal phase and I've only recently picked it up again. This is an attitude I take very seriously, along with empathy.