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It is easier to sit in the pain.
I have the option of stepping out of it. Rejoin reality. Yet, as paralyzing as this pain is, it seems easier. It is numbing. An excuse to not take the actions or even make the decisions.
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“I do not understand. The young man had his whole life ahead of him. Why would he commit suicide over something so small?”
I am seated in a meeting; those awkward minutes before it starts where we are forced to exchange small talk. Only there is nothing small about what the guy across from me is saying. His godson recently ended his own life. I suppose talking about it is his way of dealing with the shock and pain. Everyone around the conference room table has said some platitude or the other, expressing their shock and sorrow and sympathy. The usual rehearsed stuff people say at the news of death.
It is quiet. I figure it’s the customary moment of silence we give to the dead souls, but realize the silence is because of me. They are waiting for me to say something, add to the basket of collective heaviness and mourning.
“I suppose he had his reasons.” I say it before I filter my thoughts. My words are met with angry glares, and exaggerated gasps. Oh get over it! I think. They classified me as odd a long time ago. I wonder why they even feign surprise when I behave as me.Well kid, I’m glad you had the balls to go ahead with it! My final thoughts before the meeting finally begins.
I understand this young man.
That final act could not have been because of that one moment they are dissecting. It is never an impulsive decision. It was probably years of pain, accumulated, his own and others, piled over each other. Each chipping at his mind and soul in invisible ways, making it harder and harder to find his way back to existence. That thread that keeps us tethered to this plane frayed through time and experience, until one day it was simply not enough to keep the soul here.
A weak soul. No fight. Little resilience.
I have heard these words exchanged by those left behind. It is so easy to classify the person as lacking some quality that enables them to face the assault on their being and keep coming back for more. It is labeled weakness. A selfishness. A lack of responsibility. Even a mental condition. A state of being that is less than what the average person is capable of. A sort of failure.
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Empath
I first came across the word during a social ethics class in school. The teacher termed it as more than sympathy. The ability to place oneself in the shoes of another going through something and be able to understand what it is they were going through.
I had no idea the weight of those words until I was recruited.
Not for this job. This one is the cover. The one that lets me blend in and move through society without raising suspicion. It allows me to do my real job: to feel. To feel and to know. I get paid to flesh out the truth from people’s thoughts and emotions. A sort of walking lie detector.
There are all sorts of labels for this –psychic, medium, psyonic, heyoka. Empath.
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When they found me, I was a heartbeat away from my death. I had drowned enough pills with enough alcohol to end ten lives. I had been feeling maybe more than ten lives. I wanted all of us to stop hurting me.
It had been a shitty existence. One full of pain, tears, and breaking apart. I had attempted my own suicide multiple times. But something always brought me back. A calling on my soul that would fight back, claw its way up for air.
Everything always hurt; emotions and the physical.
I would have a fantastic day, then get home and break down, feeling like I was mourning a profound loss. Or I would be in a crowded place like a mall; one moment in perfect peace, the next feeling like I was fleeing for my life, gripped with fear so strong it was almost tangible. Some of these emotions were actually tangible. I could taste fear, smell death, hear lies, see love. Every emotion has a unique quality to it.
Therapy and counselling did nothing. Self-help books were equally useless. All just a cacophony of guesses and personal opinions that offered no real explanation. Religion? The biggest confusion of all. I found no answers here. Only accusations, more fear and even more unanswered questions. And so, I signed up for psychology classes. I figured my best bet was to study the mind. It revealed some things. Maybe not the what and how of it all, but certainly how it all started. Survival. Is it not how all great things start?
