Radio Silence...

The picture above was taken a year ago May. The last time I got to see Hollis, and spend a few days giggling, talking, shooting portraits (that you all know as her 22 Portraits), and just ignoring the outside world. She and I had no idea what the outcome of the Portraits would be, but she insisted that we had to give it a try. To let those out there struggling know that others are struggling, too. 

Fast forward to now, and I look at this picture, and I don't know what to think. This was the last time that I got to see Hollis. She went back to Florida, I came back home to Philly...both having lives in different areas of the country. However, what I didn't know, was that not only would this be the last time I would see her in over a year, but it would also be one of the last times that we really talked. When she returned to Florida, she began to shut me out. Little by little, of course, but the isolation began. It started out as days between phone calls, then it turned into days between text messages. Then from there it turned into months. I would try to reach out, but wouldn't get anything back. And, when she would write back, it was vague messages, and a lot of the time very cryptic messages. See, she was in a really REALLY bad relationship (we've all been there in some form or another), and while she wouldn't always tell me what was going on, she would give me cryptic codes and messages where I was able to piece things together. 
The day of the Gallery Show (yep, the one I mentioned below this post) was the last time I would talk to her on the phone before she left Florida and moved in with her mother in Tennessee. It was a frantic phone call, nothing was making sense, and she only said that she could talk for a moment before she had to go. But, she told me she was leaving the relationship and going to live with her mother. I have no idea what happened, but a huge part of me was finally relieved that she was leaving. 
Fast forward again....no communication for a while, and out of the blue she calls and tells me that, sadly, her mother had passed, and she was waiting for her brother to come in from CA (where he lives, as well as her father), and that she didn't know what she would be doing from there. I told her she should come to Philly, but she said no. It was crickets again for a couple weeks, then I got a text that said she was moving to CA. Again, I wasn't given any details or reasons, and I had no ideas what was going on, just that she was moving all the way across the country. I assumed it was to be near her family, but when I asked, I only got silence in return.

It's been a few months now that she's been out there, and I can count the number of phone calls, text messages, and facebook messages on one hand. She's admitted that she's isolating, and falling back into her old habits, but promises me that she's getting help. I don't know if it's true, and I want to believe more than anything that it is. But, she goes off radar with no communications, and that leaves me clear across the country and worried. I reach out and get silence. 

Having PTS is difficult, but I have to say that being the one on this side isn't easy either. It's taken a toll on my mental and physical well-being as well. Trust issues develop, anger and frustrations run high, and fear that she'll regress even further all plague my life now, too. And, where as she has resources available to her to turn to for help dealing with things...outside of using my own insurance, I don't. I'm left dealing with many of these things in my own way, and in the time that I can find free. And, at what point does a person say, "I've done all I can? What more can I do?". Can you truly help a person who doesn't seem to want it?

I'm not sure how she'll like this post. I've told her a few times that I needed to update this blog, asking her each time if there was anything I should or shouldn't say. Each time I ask, I'm met with the same thing....silence. I think that is the worst part of it all. The silence.