To the friends caught in the black hole of depression and anxiety, I dedicate this post to you.
Don't kill your self. Don't rob yourself of the precious life your parents bestow upon you.
No matter how excruciating it may be, the knots in your life can always be unraveled slowly, one at a time.
First written 21.07.2017
【差一點的緣份】
Honestly, I won't know.
8 months after his first message to me, he messaged me his donation receipt to Tzu Chi Foundation, seeking my service for Bazi consultation.
I asked what took him so long.
He was candid yet polite. He said he looked for me because his Brother and I were friends. He read all the reviews my clients and workshop students wrote of me and he liked that I would not hold back to tell a client if he did wrong.
(Yes, the reviews you guys wrote can really help another soul.)
The conversation tapered off, with no birth details given to me.
We didn't get to meet after all.
That was just 2 weeks ago.
Just before dinner tonight, I learnt that he was admitted to hospital for depression.
There were delusions and violent self-harm.
Could I have done more to initiate response from him, when he did not reply me?
I usually don't force things. Unless I know something's coming up.
I didn't ask for his Bazi or Chinese name, as per my usual practice. So I wouldn't have known.
There were many other messages that needed my attention and I left things as it was.
I won't know if I can made any difference, should we have met.
How powerful is my ability to bring hope to someone already in depression?
I had never measured.
Was I a shining beacon of light, for him to seek me out just 2 weeks before things worsen?
Light is in the eyes of the beholder, no?
This reminds me of the husband's Malaysian cousin, who studied and worked in Singapore on a government scholarship. Let's call him Tim.
Tim called my Husband one Tuesday night at about 830pm.
We were at the movies and only saw the missed call at about 1130pm.
Thinking it was too late, the Husband made a mental reminder to call Tim the next morning.
The next morning, we collected his dead body from the mortuary of SGH. His grieving parents, who drove all the way from KL overnight, crumbled into wails as Tim's body was wheeled out for identification.
Tim jumped down from his flat, about 2 hours after he called. Apparently, he only called my husband and none of his family.
12 years on, we still do not know what Tim wanted to tell my Husband.
Could it be:
"Sorry, Gor. I have to break my scholarship bond because I cannot take the stress. Thank you for being my guarantor all these years."
?
None of his family knew what Tim was undergoing, prior to his suicide.
He was only 25.
(If you think it's okay to hurl sarcastic words at foreigners on local scholarships, who may be living all alone in a strange land, this is food for thought for you.)
When we teach our children the alphabets and hanyu pinyin.
When we tell them to remember their thank-yous and pleases.
When we get them to hustle for their academic achievements and be a all-rounder.
Please remind our little ones that it's okay if they are not good enough.
Please also teach them a path to seek solace in the Higher Beings, no matter what religion you are. It's okay if they opt for another faith. As long as it's orthodox.
Like in judo, don't forget to teach them how to fall right and overcome that fear of falling, before learning how to kick fast and high.
If you are a Tibetan Buddhist like me, please master the skill of demarcation from your Root Guru and impart that knowledge to your loved ones. Always invoke the protection of your Vajra Protectors to guard you from negative energies and afflictions. I do that every day at least twice.
For when you get depressed for too long, your mental frequency goes down down down. When it matches the low frequency of spirits, this is where the real trouble begins.
You hear voices people can't hear, you see things that people can't see, you get "sixth sense" that doesn't make any sense.
You get sucked deeper and deeper into your make-believe world, that you lose all touch with the real world.
👋 Come back, my Friend. 👋
Don't go there. There's only cold darkness and terrifying despair.
🤝 Come back, where there's love, light and hope. 🤝
Strength is where the Sun is. All is not lost.
Don't cut yourself. Don't smash yourself.
Suicide is not liberation and will only create a level of Hell for you to commit suicide again and again, in the same manner every day at the same time. You will feel the exact fears and doom each and every time you kill yourself.
Say you kill yourself when you are 30 years old, but your destined lifespan was to end at 70 years old, that means for the next 40 years in hell, every day, you are going to kill yourself once. 40 x 365, you do the Maths.
In the netherworld, suicide ghosts are of the lowest class and are often despised by other ghosts. Your death will be worse than your living days.
If you are reincarnated as a human, your body will be incomplete, either as a handicap or born deaf, mute or blind. Or all of the above.
While we all have our own karmic debts, this too shall pass. We are all Buddhas inside and have infinite potential.
Your time is not up yet. Keep your mind open. Keep your heart going. Keep your body healthy. Don't let this monster of a darkness eat you up. I love you. Your friends and family love you. You love yourself. You are worth more than this. Hand to heart, all will be well. This too shall pass.
天無絕人之路，你千萬不要絕了自己的路。
.........
If there is any merit in writing this, I dedicate it to the people who are fighting everyday for their sanity beneath the heavy cloak of depression and anxiety.
May you emerge stronger and wiser. May the Light of Buddhas always be on you. Amitabha.
蓮花童子心咒、長咒∶
༄༅༎ཨོཾ་ཨཱ༔་ཧཱུྃ་གུ་རུ་པྷྱཿ་འ༔་ཨ༔་ཤ༔་ས༔་མ༔་ཧ༔་པདྨ་སམ་སིདྡྷི་ཧཱུྃ།།
嗡啊吽。古魯貝。阿訶薩沙媽哈。蓮生悉地吽。
