I’ve known her for thirty three years.
That’s not really a friendship anymore. That’s a witness statement.
She has seen more versions of me than I sometimes believe exist.
The calm one.
The funny one.
The generous one.
The destructive one.
And the one who looked completely fine while quietly falling apart.
She didn’t arrive late to my story.
She was there before I had language for what was wrong.
Before diagnoses.
Before labels.
Before professionals explained things I was already living through.
Back then it was just this:
I didn’t sleep.
I didn’t settle.
I didn’t stop.
She watched me self-medicate my way through life.
Anything that promised relief.
Anything that suggested peace might be possible.
She saw the darker things too.
The burns.
The injuries.
The careful attempts to hide them.
She covered for me when I couldn’t face being seen.
Not dramatic lies.
Practical ones.
The kind you tell when you love someone and you’re trying to keep them alive.
And what matters most is this:
she never treated me like I was broken.
She didn’t hover.
She didn’t lecture.
She didn’t try to rescue me.
She stayed.
There are two kinds of fire in my life.
The first is the one people expect.
The destructive fire.
The burning-down-from-the-inside fire.
This isn’t sadness.
It’s weight.
It’s heaviness.
It’s thoughts that loop until they feel inevitable.
That fire isolates you.
And then convinces you that isolation is sensible.
She saw that fire.
But there is another one.
Sometimes I’m on fire in a completely different way.
Sometimes I walk into a pub and something switches on.
I’m sharp.
I’m confident.
I’m funny.
I’m in control.
I don’t try to take over the room.
It just happens.
Charisma arrives fully formed.
Like it’s been waiting.
That fire feels incredible.
Invincible.
Necessary.
And here’s the truth that took years to understand:
Both fires come from the same place.
This isn’t ego.
It isn’t personality.
It isn’t choice.
It’s bipolar fire.
One burns everything down.
The other lights everything up.
And the dangerous thing about the second fire
is how right it feels.
How convincing it is.
How much it feels like the real me.
She saw that too.
She noticed the swings long before anyone named them.
She accepted them as part of me — not flaws, not excuses — just facts.
We spent years talking in pubs.
Lists of pros and cons.
Endless discussions about women I was chasing.
And the truth is:
it was rarely about sex.
It was about validation.
The chase.
The proof that I still mattered.
She was safe because she wanted nothing from me.
No drama.
No conquest.
Just honesty.
She became family without ceremony.
Lunches.
Drinks.
Smoking.
Laughing.
Sitting with me while I analysed myself like a failed experiment.
And still — she stayed.
When I read her words now, what hits hardest isn’t the chaos.
It’s the calm.
No judgement.
No shock.
Just love.
“I love him like a brother.”
That sentence lands.
Because it means someone saw everything —
the burns,
the brilliance,
the generosity,
the impulse,
the destruction,
the charm —and didn’t walk away.
She didn’t need me to be well to be worthy.
She didn’t need me to be stable to be loved.
She saw the fires before I understood them.
And she stood close enough to feel the heat.
That matters more than I know how to say.
And in that, there’s a quiet kind of healing.
A reminder that even in the darkest moments, there’s someone who sees you and stays.
And that is a powerful kind of love.