Day 76

25.06.18

I was eating lunch by myself downstairs when I received a WeChat message from my friend Helen's account saying that Helen had passed away. This is was in response to one of my messages asking her how she was going.

I froze. I went empty. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't even eat anymore. It was only a couple of days ago when she came over to my house to chill and got me some ice tea because it was a hot day. We talked about her situation. She was still super depressed but I always convince myself and try to convince her that she would get better. I told myself, at least she was leaving the house and away from thinking really bad thoughts. At least she was distracting herself and having a laugh around me - which wasn't the case when I first saw her. She had been on medication - to regulate her emotions, to stop her from doing unthinkable things. Now, the unthinkable has happened.

I'm struggling to come to terms to it. It was just so sudden. And I thought to myself: why does this happen to me? 23 year old kid, who initially just wanted to catch up with a woman that I had met a couple of months ago, who was the daughter of my mum's good friend. Initially, it was just supposed to be a catch up. I've just moved to Nanjing - she's from Nanjing. Makes sense to catch up,

Then, I was thrust into her situation. She told me about her depression. Is it fair for me to know this? I'm just a guy, who doesn't really know her, now she's told me something very personal about her life. Could I have not cared? Maybe. But as anyone would do, you want to try to give some support. You don't want to think yourself as the saviour but someone who can be there when others can't, because if you have hope, you think that even the smallest bit can help.

So I got to know her a bit more and found out a lot about her personal life. She told me that the first time we met, she was putting on a show - she seemed happy and she brought her son along. In fact, she had already decided to divorce at that stage - her mood was far from happy. I would check up on her often, whether it was via WeChat, or in person.

I felt like I was one of very few people who actually knew and understood how she felt before she died. Maybe I was the only one to know. She said she felt uncomfortable speaking about her true feelings to her friends because she'd feel embarrassed and lose face. Since I'm almost a stranger, she told me everything. She told me her mum couldn't understand her too, and there were some details that she'd left out when speaking to her mum. She had lost all hope. It was a personality issue. Someone who had had a relatively comfortable and smooth-sailing life and never dealt with serious challenges, faced a challenge that was too overwhelming for her to handle. She wasn't mentally strong enough. She couldn't control herself in the end.

It's weird because I feel separated but invested at the same time. Separation because I don't really know her and I never will. Invested because I knew her in her final state and the state that she died in.
So back to my own question: Why me? It will forever be part of my experience here. It's something that was put in front of me and something that I have to learn from. It is what it is and we have to move on from it. Let her be an example of how not to handle adversity. Let her remind us that we need to confront our own demons instead of trying to avoid and escape from them.

RIP Helen 23.06.18.