and sometimes….

We have this common understanding that suicide is just a thought. Something that happens in a fraction of a second, an impulsive action that comes out of unbearable pain, and if you just sleep over it, maybe by tomorrow you will feel better.

I have heard this before.

Almost 15 to 18 years ago, during my intermediate, when I tried to end my life, my father told me exactly that. I was overreacting, I needed to acknowledge things, I needed to have more endurance, especially because I was a woman, and if I just slept over the thought, things would probably look better the next day. It became more of a lecture and a guilt trip than an attempt to understand what was actually happening inside my head.

But no, yaar. Some things don’t become better just because you slept over them.

And sometimes, suicide isn’t even about having a hundred problems.

I remember during COVID, I had thoughts of suicide again. Not because I had billions of problems, not because I had financial issues, and not because I had some terrible life I desperately wanted to escape from. Sometimes, I was just bored. Completely and painfully bored. It wasn’t exactly loneliness either. It was being stuck with my own mind for too long, with the same days repeating themselves, and somehow that thought would enter and become incredibly difficult to take my mind away from it.

That made me realise how little we actually know about what is happening inside another person’s head.

There are people who think about suicide and still show up every day. They go to work, sit in the cubicle next to you, have lunch with you, come home to their families, laugh at your jokes, and continue with their lives while carrying something nobody knows about.

And sometimes, the signs can be completely opposite to what we expect.

Someone suddenly becomes very affectionate, starts calling you more, checking on you, being unusually friendly, and we think, “Oh, maybe things are finally getting better for them.” We think something has changed in their life, maybe they are trying, maybe they have finally found some happiness.

Sometimes, it is the other way around. They suddenly become cold. They pick unnecessary fights, distance themselves from people, stop responding, and try to detach from everyone. And we think they have changed. We think they are angry with us. We think they are being difficult.

Little do we know what is actually running through their mind.

Until one day, we hear the news.

And then suddenly, all those conversations come back.

We replay the messages we didn’t reply to, the calls we postponed, the arguments we left unresolved, the conversations we thought we could have another day. We start thinking, “Oh God, if I had been there, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.” Or we guilt-trip ourselves thinking we couldn’t be there for them, couldn’t support them, couldn’t notice what was happening.

Maybe we could have done something.

Maybe we couldn’t have.

We will never really know.

But life is too short for all these “would have been”, “should have been”, “could have been” and “maybe this, maybe that” conversations that we keep postponing until there is no one left to have them with.

Maybe we don’t need to become experts at identifying who is struggling. Maybe we just need to become a little more present with the people around us.

Ask again when someone says they are fine. Stay a little longer when someone suddenly becomes distant. Don’t dismiss someone’s pain just because you cannot see a big enough reason for it.

Because sometimes the person sitting right next to you is fighting a battle you will never know about.

And sometimes, all they need is one person who makes them feel that they don’t have to fight it completely alone.

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