I got a phone call last week at 3am in the morning from a "friend" in the States and it was not a pleasant call either. At the end, it left me drained and tired from the lack of sleep and I was like a zombie the next morning at work. I was cranky and irritated at everyone, everything, at myself.
I didn't understand why until last weekend.
Last weekend was a good weekend in all sense as we had a feast my family and I. Sis made Pulut Durian (Durian dessert with sticky rice). Mom brought Ayam Percit (specail chicken dish) all the way from KB and on top of that, we pigged out on cempedak (dunno what the English version is called... it's like jack fruit but only sweeter and stickier) and empress cherries from Canada. It was a family weekend.
But I finally had time to reflect on what my life seems to be about. My life has stopped being my own. It seems that I'm always the person there for another and the person to catch someone when he/she falls. But I have no one to catch me when I fall. So far I've not fallen and I'm greatful for that, but I don't like the way my life is now. I'm like Designated Dave, the guy who drives drunken louts home but they don't remember him the next day until they are drunk again and needs his services, in the movie Crazy or something with Melissa Joan Hart. Whatever.
That phone call in the middle of the night was suicidal and last weekend I realised that I had just been emotionally blackmailed. Yes, I feel for this person but I can't very well be there all the time. It galls me that that person called me under the influence of alcohol and then only did his/her true feelings bubbled forth like a babbling (literally) brook that became a dam that burst, with shouts of "No you don't understand" and "how can you ask if I will be ok" at me.
I know that I'm not equip with proper wisdom on how to handle a suicidal person. I was so afraid of triggering something that might lead to grief. I had to basically handle this person for hours, when all I wanted to shout GROW UP and slam the phone down. But I didn't. I couldn't.
It was an emotional turmoil for me as well as I was taken down a path that had me crying and feeling for this person. We make mistakes in our lives but what is it that drives people to such actions and frame of mind? Yes I too sometimes want to scream and shout but suicide? No. I don't think being that stupid will solve anything. If anything, it will only make things worst for my family and friends and I would have had unburdened myself at their expense.
I called again the next day and I'm glad to know all is okay now, that that episode was a lapse. Although I'm "happy" to have been able to help in some way, I feel angry that I've had to conform or else... The feeling of being used as an emotional flogging post is still with me and now I resent this person. I do. It's irrational to a certain extend I know but maybe I'm a emtional mess at the moment that I can't take on other people emotional baggage.
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