Holy crap
Trigger warnings: mentions of suicidal thoughts/attempts.
I literally just realised that if I hadn't taken the wrong bus this one time at the beginning of 2005, I wouldn't be alive right now. See, that's how I met my friend Saradha, who later stopped me from killing myself.
I took the wrong bus because I didn't understand how bus routes worked (yes, I was 13, but it was my first week taking public transport to secondary school; my primary school had been five minutes' walk away, and my dad drove me everywhere else, and I'd only taken public transport a handful of times with my uncle and grandma and assumed all buses worked the way the one that came to our house did) and Saradha happened to be next to me and smiling. (I knew she was in the year above me at school because we all had colour-coded name tags.)
We chatted, she asked which area I was going to and I explained my route and she said she didn't think the bus went there, though I swore it did, but she made me get down with her at her stop because another bus stopped there and it would bring me to the interchange near my home. And that bus took forever to come, so she waited with me and we got to chatting some more. We were gleeful about having found a fellow Harry Potter fangirl and then we spoke about the school forums, which were basically a giant forum/message board thing that was restricted to students and teachers and each year had their own sub-forum that was open to the rest of the school, and when I told her what class I was in she said, "Hey, I've seen your class' posts on the forum. They talk about this girl who's really old-fashioned and nerdy and annoying and nobody likes her, do you know who it is?"
I stared at her for a moment, then I quietly said, "Um, that's me," and waited for her to laugh and go home. There was this awkward pause, and then she said, "Oh. Well, I don't agree with them." And there was this little burst of gratefulness in me.
Anyway. A year later, in mid-2006, I was at one of the lowest points in my life. I was being bullied and ostracised in school and the few friends I had (I could count them on one hand and have fingers to spare) seemed to be pulling away and I wasn't doing well lessons-wise and I was miserable at home - this was before I became close to my sister, so I was pretty lonely at home too, and my parents dealt with my poor marks by being harsher - and I'd spent a couple of years being groped by my Maths tutor during tuition sessions and even though I'd just been forced (by Saradha) to tell my mother a few months prior and so it had stopped, I was not really dealing with it very well or at all, really; my family's reaction had been to never talk about it again with me but become even more overprotective, and that was also stifling. So I texted a suicide note, of sorts, to Saradha and then I stood at the kitchen window (we live on the top floor and the windows are wide open things, even a very large person could easily fit through) and was about to jump when my phone rang. I guess some part of me didn't want to do it and so I went to my phone, but if there'd been nothing to pull me back I would have done it.
We had a long conversation that really helped, that gave me a lot of strength to work through things, and she made me promise to never think about suicide again. I did seriously consider it one more time some months later, but I'd promised her, so I didn't do it, and I've never seriously considered it since.
Anyway, it just occurred to me how amazing it was that my leap of (il)logic on that day at that particular moment (the 72 at my stop goes to the Yio Chu Kang train station, the 72 across the road seems to come a lot more often and it's 72 so it should go to the same place eventually) meant I had gotten on the bus at the same time that she had, and that she'd smiled at me and been approachable, and I'd dared to speak to her. I mean, I've known since she stopped me that I owe her my life and I'm lucky we're friends, but it never clicked before that if I hadn't randomly taken the wrong bus because the right one was a bit slow I'd never have met her and I'd probably have left a handwritten note for my family instead and there would have been nobody to stop me.
And considering how happy I am with life in general right now, I am so glad I took the wrong bus.
Crossposted from Dreamwidth: http://sivaroobini.dreamwidth.org/82959.html.
I literally just realised that if I hadn't taken the wrong bus this one time at the beginning of 2005, I wouldn't be alive right now. See, that's how I met my friend Saradha, who later stopped me from killing myself.
I took the wrong bus because I didn't understand how bus routes worked (yes, I was 13, but it was my first week taking public transport to secondary school; my primary school had been five minutes' walk away, and my dad drove me everywhere else, and I'd only taken public transport a handful of times with my uncle and grandma and assumed all buses worked the way the one that came to our house did) and Saradha happened to be next to me and smiling. (I knew she was in the year above me at school because we all had colour-coded name tags.)
We chatted, she asked which area I was going to and I explained my route and she said she didn't think the bus went there, though I swore it did, but she made me get down with her at her stop because another bus stopped there and it would bring me to the interchange near my home. And that bus took forever to come, so she waited with me and we got to chatting some more. We were gleeful about having found a fellow Harry Potter fangirl and then we spoke about the school forums, which were basically a giant forum/message board thing that was restricted to students and teachers and each year had their own sub-forum that was open to the rest of the school, and when I told her what class I was in she said, "Hey, I've seen your class' posts on the forum. They talk about this girl who's really old-fashioned and nerdy and annoying and nobody likes her, do you know who it is?"
I stared at her for a moment, then I quietly said, "Um, that's me," and waited for her to laugh and go home. There was this awkward pause, and then she said, "Oh. Well, I don't agree with them." And there was this little burst of gratefulness in me.
Anyway. A year later, in mid-2006, I was at one of the lowest points in my life. I was being bullied and ostracised in school and the few friends I had (I could count them on one hand and have fingers to spare) seemed to be pulling away and I wasn't doing well lessons-wise and I was miserable at home - this was before I became close to my sister, so I was pretty lonely at home too, and my parents dealt with my poor marks by being harsher - and I'd spent a couple of years being groped by my Maths tutor during tuition sessions and even though I'd just been forced (by Saradha) to tell my mother a few months prior and so it had stopped, I was not really dealing with it very well or at all, really; my family's reaction had been to never talk about it again with me but become even more overprotective, and that was also stifling. So I texted a suicide note, of sorts, to Saradha and then I stood at the kitchen window (we live on the top floor and the windows are wide open things, even a very large person could easily fit through) and was about to jump when my phone rang. I guess some part of me didn't want to do it and so I went to my phone, but if there'd been nothing to pull me back I would have done it.
We had a long conversation that really helped, that gave me a lot of strength to work through things, and she made me promise to never think about suicide again. I did seriously consider it one more time some months later, but I'd promised her, so I didn't do it, and I've never seriously considered it since.
Anyway, it just occurred to me how amazing it was that my leap of (il)logic on that day at that particular moment (the 72 at my stop goes to the Yio Chu Kang train station, the 72 across the road seems to come a lot more often and it's 72 so it should go to the same place eventually) meant I had gotten on the bus at the same time that she had, and that she'd smiled at me and been approachable, and I'd dared to speak to her. I mean, I've known since she stopped me that I owe her my life and I'm lucky we're friends, but it never clicked before that if I hadn't randomly taken the wrong bus because the right one was a bit slow I'd never have met her and I'd probably have left a handwritten note for my family instead and there would have been nobody to stop me.
And considering how happy I am with life in general right now, I am so glad I took the wrong bus.
Crossposted from Dreamwidth: http://sivaroobini.dreamwidth.org/82959.html.