broken

If I come out with this to other people, that I’m just more baggage. They signed up for a friendship, not a therapy session. Unnecessary drama that they are not obligated to deal with.

With the thoughts rushing about people who trying to make sure I’m safe by reason of them being friends or family, doing small things like giving me pepper spray only so I am safe for my walks across the city. I know it’s selfish of me to do this, yet I can’t stay suspended in this state. Wanting to make friends and making efforts to, only for the interaction to end in silence and confusion more often than not. Multitudes of people treating me as a ignorant off-the-shelf extra when I was generally respected years ago. Wanting to help other friends with their issues while being terrified of the risk of their suicide.

It’s happened to a friend on the Internet, who notified me that I was one out of six people they ever talked to, including real life. I regret letting myself drift apart from him. He used to vent to me, and we used to talk for hours on end, ever since early 2016. He was intensely interested in learning programming languages and would regularly contact me for tips. We both were large proponents of the Nintendo 3DS hacking scene, back when everything was experimental and no end-user assistance was widely available. I still remember how excited he was to move to Canada for his search of a better life and relations. I at least got to see his funeral from one of his friends, but learning his specific method of exit still bothers me.

A coworker I have fond memories of, who I’ve always wanted to visit since they left the store. My mind always flashes back to them making paper ducks and decorating the break / computer rooms of the store with them, no other reason but to lighten up the mood. My mind flashes to them crying on the break room table with their head down due to their home life and mental struggles. The conversations we had. The assurance I gave him. After he left the store, I still wanted to find ways to help and work through with their issues and try to be the one person he looks forward to seeing. We both had similar interests, as he was a web developer. But none of that really mattered as I learned that they hung themselves, and the shift manager was the one to travel to his house to discover his dangling body.
It’s Noah. I didn’t even know he was interviewed and that the webpage existed until after someone broke the news to me, and I tried to get in contact with his parents – coming across this on Google.

Someone I went to school with, and spent a year hanging out with and sitting next to at lunch daily, even if I didn’t know his friends. I spent the following summer constantly thinking about him as he seemed innocent, yet forced to silently deal with problems that I won’t mention here. I often relive the scene where he greeted me alone in the morning, giving me his full attention, with his music playing from his small speaker in the school courtyard before the school day started. When I arrive to school, I usually try to avoid individual people and opted for “friend groups” or complete solitude. Yet his presence was simply calming. It’s why I was comfortable being with him the school-year prior, either alone or in a group. This would have been a fond memory, regardless of him taking his life on this same night.

Even an Internet personality who jumpstarted most of my hobbies today, whose suicide sent ripples through every single one of my friend communities and work communities. Going missing for days and his community coming together to create watch posts in the case he travels down; coming together to exchange information about possible whereabouts, geolocating his final appearance. Days of uncertainty before he was found.
My mom burst in tears at the news, as she knew how much of a ray of light he was to me. She knew, before even I did, when the news broke out.

Funerals for grandparents hurt when you attend them with your own parents. They also hurt when you realise that you will never have a chance to become close to these members of your family. I already have no clue if my father is even living right now. I don’t talk to my siblings at all, without any exaggeration. I literally live with two of them.
Showing up to prom in the same outfit you saw your grandfather buried in only hours before doesn’t feel nice. And, while I wasn’t as close to these people, it still affected extended family, and brought out some of the worst in them.

Every one of these happened within one year. Mid-2018 to mid-2019. It’s something I’m sensitive to, and every time I find myself unable to console and offer assistance to someone in need, my mind flashes to this horrifying scenario in which they’re no longer here. It’s ridiculous, but it’s only intensified since I’ve found myself unable to help others more often in recent memory. Therapy can only do so much. And with everything else on this page, I’ve given up. Fighting to make no progress. It’s been bad in this past year, worse than it’s ever been.

One this day, 366 days ago, I left my college building after failing a math test, not even able to answer three questions. Being the last person in the room, I turned in my paper without a word and started to walk to the bus stop. Walking home, alone, silent, and crushed. Tears filling the wells of my eyes, while navigating the parking lot and sidewalks, the public bus passed me as if I wasn’t at the bus stop. The bus which only comes once every two hours. Absolutely… the perfect thing to happen at that time was to force me to be alone trapped with my thoughts, with a dead phone, during the approaching dusk.

• […] if I can’t help myself, I can at least try to help others. But of course, this loops back to this, like a […]

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