Life Caught Me At a Surprise

It was a normal sunny California day, but little did I know what was about to happen. I was in my grandma’s bathroom getting ready to go out with some friends. I was doing my makeup thinking nothing of the day. All I kept thinking that day was “I can’t wait to go eat out with them, I haven’t seen them in so long”. It was around 2 pm at the time and I got a facetime call from one of my closest friends named Ivan. I stood in shock for two seconds because I hadn’t spoken to him in a couple of weeks. I answered the call not knowing what I was about to witness. Happily, I said, “ Ivan, how are y-”. I stopped in shock because he was crying his heart out to me. You can hear him breathing hard like he couldn’t breathe. My first thought was that someone in his family had passed away. Worriedly I asked, “Ivan what happened? Are you okay? I haven’t seen you like this in so long”. All you could hear was him screaming and crying saying, “I’m tired of being here”. Once he said that I automatically had a gut feeling something was wrong like he was going to do something bad. I felt a lump in my throat and my heart dropped to my stomach. 

I tried to stay as calm as I could throughout facetime. I finally got the courage to say something and quietly said, “Ivan what’s going on? Don’t do anything dumb, please. You can talk to me, I’m here.” Ivan was just trying to calm himself down so he could talk and tell me what was going on. Five long minutes pass by, I could tell Ivan was so defeated and I had seen a bottle of pills in his hand. I wanted to cry because I know what it was like to feel like nothing and to feel worthless. He finally spoke and said, “Kaitlyn, I just don’t know what to do anymore. There’s no point in me staying in this world, no one is going to care once I’m gone. I feel like a ghost around everyone. I’m so tired of feeling like I’m not good enough, I see people around me happy and I always ask God why I can’t be happy like them.” I knew Ivan at the time was having problems with his dad so I knew that was adding more to what he was feeling. Trying to process what was going on, I took a slow deep breath. I calmly said, “ Ivan, I know that you’ve been dealing with depression. I know the pain that you feel right now feels like it isn’t going to go away but remember nothing lasts forever. The pain you feel right now can go away tomorrow, in a year, in a month. All you need to know is that pain is only temporary and it isn’t permanent. Over time, you will soon find something that will make you happy.” I could tell he was listening to me because it got quiet, quiet enough that you could probably hear a mouse walking around. We sat again in silence, I wanted him to feel that it was okay to feel the way he felt.

 I wanted him to feel safe with me so he could tell me everything that was going on in his head. Still trying to catch his breath he said, “ I know Kaitlyn but I’m just so tired of feeling this way. It feels like it’s never going to end and there’s no point in me being here because who’s gonna notice? You and my nephew might be the only people that I know that make sure that I’m okay. Everything I try to do to impress my dad never works. He tells me I’m useless and just says all these bad things. He acts like ``If I don’t have any feelings of my own.” I felt so bad for Ivan because I knew how his dad was but I never thought that his dad treated him that way. I just sat on the bathroom floor thinking, “ If I was Ivan I wouldn’t even know what I would do, there are probably other kids out there that are going through the same thing and they probably don’t have anyone to talk to. I calmly spoke and said, “ Ivan, I know that things are hard for you right now but trying to end your life isn’t going to help. You’re just going to miss everything you’ve been looking forward to your whole life. If you end your life you’re never going to continue your baseball dreams, you’re never going to see your nieces and nephews grow up, you’re never going to see yourself, graduate. You’re never going to see yourself start a family with someone.” He replied saying “ If I’m really honest with you, I never thought about it that way. I wanted to end my life because of the way my dad makes me feel and the way I’ve felt about life. I never thought much about how it would affect my future”. I responded with, “ Ivan, if you weren’t meant to be on this earth god would’ve already taken you with him or he would’ve never created you. He would’ve never brought you into this world, you're here for a reason and you’re here for a purpose.” After I said that Ivan got a bit of relief, I saw that he felt like a weight was lifted off of his shoulders. He put the bottle of pills back in the bathroom where he got them from. 

I felt a little sense of happiness in my heart because I thought, “ I think I just saved him from trying to kill himself.” At the time I was still trying to think about everything that just happened in about an hour. I always knew that Ivan suffered from severe depression but I never really knew how bad it was until this happened. I asked him, “ Are you okay? Do you feel better now that you got to talk to me?” I finally got to see a smile on Ivan’s face and he said, “ Honestly I don’t know what could’ve happened to me if you weren’t here on the phone talking to me right now. I’m really happy and grateful to have someone like you in my life because I’d be lost without you. You are my best friend and I hope that you know one day if I make it far in baseball I’m going to repay you for everything that you’ve done for me.” I laughed and told him, “ You don’t have to repay me for anything Ivan, I just need to make sure that your okay and you aren’t thinking about doing anything dumb.” He laughed too and replied, “ Yes I know but you deserve it too especially after everything you’ve gone through.” I didn’t say anything after that, I just stood quiet. I told him that I had to go because I was about to go somewhere with my friends. The call ended and I felt kind of like a hero because I just saved someone from trying to end their life. At the end of it all, I realized a lot about life and people. I knew people went through depression and they had suicidal thoughts but I never thought I was going to experience something like that with one of my closest friends. Now I realized that I have to be careful of what I tell someone because at the end of the day you don’t know what the other person is going through. An act of kindness can probably make someone’s day and make them feel a sense of happiness.