Something I'll never forget

Writing this from a third person would definitely be of great assistance as it allows me to completely detach myself from the contents of today’s post. You’ll comprehend why at the end of the post.

Before I continue, I need to warn you, my dear readers, that there are trigger warnings of suicide and trauma. If it’ll make you queasy or set off traumatic reminiscences, please, please, please don’t read what I’m about to write.



















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Something happened in the course of her studies and she had totally forgotten about it until he stumbled upon the YouTube videos on mental health while sliding down the rabbit hole of research for an unrelated topic.

What surprises her to this day is her reaction towards it. She had expected herself to respond in a more emotional way - like panic or even tears - due to the cold hand on the base of her spine. She didn’t break down in panic, but her face was bleached with such fear and pallor that her hands started to shake.

There were lingering aftereffects. She was surrounded by that cold, eerie feeling for the rest of the night, she whispered in the air as she begged for peace and to be left alone, and she barely slept without having the nightlight switched on until the next morning. She was even scared of falling asleep for the fear of nightmares. But she didn’t have much time to deal with it because of what she prioritized at that moment.

Her exam papers.

Yes, after years of skirting around the topic, she’s willing to spill a tad bit more, considering the length of time. Since it’s been many years now, you’ll need to exercise a great amount of effort to gain access to it even with the right keywords.

*takes a gulp of her cappuccino that’s now turned cold*

She was supposed to be revising for one of her papers, but had to sort out some important matters beforehand. It was in the midst of her call that she heard something landing on the ground outside with a thud, but paid no attention to it. She figured that it was a dislodged block of cement that fell. She only suspected something amiss when she spotted security guards on their handheld transceivers (read: walkie-talkie) at the road opposite her place. The fear-induced trauma swimming in that pedestrian’s eyes finally piqued her curiosity, and so, she went to take a peek.

Her heart sank to the pit of her stomach when she saw what she saw. It would now remain as a faint memory in her mind: a long-legged person in black - from head to toe - motionless on the roof. The sweatshirt’s hood obscured the person’s head. It was in this moment that her mind connected the two and two together. The sound that she heard while being on the phone was not the brick smashing, but rather the impact of a person plummeting on a hard surface.

Being close yet far from it assisted with the level of exposure in some ways, she’d say. The aftermath would’ve been greater on her emotions and mental well-being. And she’d have trouble focusing on her final paper as it was scheduled the day after that. Her acquaintances knew nothing of what she experienced. To them, she merely wore the look of someone stressed. Her sister, on the other hand, knew what transpired and kept an eye on her while she was careful enough not to trigger anything.



































Had I shared it in first person, it’d bring my mind back to that fateful day and possibly break the gates of sorrows again. I didn’t cry per se, but I sort of understood the person’s decision to end his pain in this fashion. It taught me a couple of things about the extent of our willingness to end our pain: once you’re deep in that dark place, you crave for death to kill the sufferings because you’ve lost all of the hope that life brings in its presence. Not everyone’s vocal about their feelings because society just doesn’t encourage us much on this. When we speak up about our feelings, the default response is to “suck it up” or “don’t feel this way”. It’s dangerously easy to fall through the cracks.

One dark move and that’s it.

That’s one part of the explanation. The other is that I’ll end up oversharing about my fragile emotional state of mind as a result of the trauma that I went through. Put it this way, it's enough to change my understanding of 1) how life works and 2) how people behave. It's too personal for me to share on such a public platform, so I'll leave it at that.