#etika

Honestly I see this as more of a bittersweet vent but felt like talking about this somewhere. As someone whose thoughts have gone there often and has been in that place before time and time again. I’ve come to realize that once you are there there is a certain divide in understanding and an obvious barrier and disassociation from a su1c*d*l person and a not su1c1d@1 person. People who haven’t been at that point before can sympathize but often can’t always understand how easy it is to shut other people’s thoughts out once you are in that place. That being said of course there are always people that care and have been in that place before and understand that you can come across. It’s just the authenticity that can be hard to find. One thing over the years that has helped me from time to time is this. Seeing what happened to someone else to remember the impact that taking a life has on others. It can be very easy to disassociate even if you know people would miss you when you are gone and feel that you would be easily forgotten once those people pass. But to give myself a dose of reality. I sometimes watch Etika. Even though I didn’t know him when he was alive. I can clearly see how him taking his own life as a result of the imperfect mental health system and unprofessional methods used to treat him as well as constant toxic cyber bullying from his fans and chat has affected the people that cared about him and his community. I don’t have to see the full scale of the impact to know that the people that cared about Etika will mourn him for the rest of his life. Even years later I sometimes still watch his Undertale true pacifist videos and his Deltarune chapter 1 play through and cry. I cry partially because someone like Shayy got to live to see chapter 4 and Etika didn’t. But also because it’s a very human and self reflective thing in the larger scheme of things to see how loss can effect other people. When you are thinking about losing yourself and in that place it can be easy to forget the impact your loss would have. Seeing the hole Etika left and every once in a while grieving that when I’m in a dark place helps me to remember that an action like that is something you can never come back from. And the people around you will always care. Robbing yourself of the choices and future experiences you could have had. Is the saddest part of it all. Because not only do you lose your friends and family if you commit and make a decision like that that Etika did in a dark place. But you lose the ability to make choices. For your friends to see you make choices. And see a future version of yourself. Because the only version of yourself that matters is the version that’s still here. So maybe I’m delusional sometimes. And maybe I’m sentimental. But sometimes I watch Etika’s playthroughs, and I cry. Because I see the hole he left in so many peoples lives. And I see how many people miss him. And how that crater impacted people even today years later. And it helps me remember. That every loss is a crater. A crater I don’t want to be responsible for widening. The options are make another one. Or remember why me still being here matters. So I choose the latter. And sometimes. For me. That means seeing the sad choices someone else made. To remind myself why I can’t let myself drown. Not for the people around me who still need me here. And not for myself either. There is no better reminder that you matter than seeing how someone else’s death can impact others lives. Because it reminds you that that could be you. It could be anyone. Anyone could be that crater in someone else’s life. I know better than anyone that when I’m in that place I say I don’t care. But I always care deep down. And I know somewhere beneath the numb and confused and hurting part of them. People in that dark place care too. So don’t let yourself be that crater in someone else’s life. Stay here. To see what someone else couldn’t. To make the best of choices someone else never got to have. Maybe I didn’t choose this life but for the people I care about. Gotta live it.

And fuck you Keemstar