I wonder sometimes if I would have been a different person if my life was different. Would I have been stronger or would I have been weaker. Would I have appreciated things less since I didn’t lose very important things in life. Would I have worried about the little things?
I believe we are the amalgamation of the personality we are born with, our past experiences, the people we interact with, the guidance we receive, the mistakes we make and the lessons that it teaches us.
I am a sum total of all these things. So I wonder why I survived. Why am I still alive? What makes us handle problems differently?
I was always interested in Philosophy. Being an avid reader, I enjoyed thinking about the personalities of different characters and trying to understand why they do what they do. I read about Socrates Philosophy and Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics. I was fascinated about philosophical thought experiments like the ones in here when I was in my teens.
I enjoy shows like “The Good Place” and “Rick and Morty”. I could talk about them all day. Was I born with this interest or did I cultivate this interest searching for a way to survive?
I think about when I was younger and my dad chose to do things a certain way and I never understood them. He was a dreamer. He built ideas in his head and wanted to bring them to life. He would interact with people who had great ideas and would completely be swept away with those ideas and believed in them 100%. In this “Things I wish I could tell him about what I think about his ideas” I talk more about it, I don’t want to go on another rant here as well on that.
But I kind of understand now that his personality was like that and his thinking made him do certain things. I am more of a realist, who saves money before spending and is careful about the company I keep.
I took an MBTI personality test and it turns out I am an ISTJ. So that is probably why even in my darkest moment, I think about my responsibility. I put responsibility above all else because that is how my brain is wired to do. Even now, after my sister had committed suicide, I constantly think about what did I do wrong. If I had said something different and did something different she might have still been alive. A lot of people said that my sister and dad had too many friends. They liked nice things but that doesn’t make them shallow. It’s just their personalities, it seems. When I asked my psychologist, why did they give up, why did they dream of things that were hard to achieve and became frustrated and unmotivated when they couldn’t achieve them. She said it’s their personality. I was shocked. I remember asking my sister to take a personality test for fun in 2021 and she told me she got “ENFJ-T“. But now I seem to understand how she saw life.
Does that mean people with their personality are doomed to die from suicide when they are sad. Are they more prone to depression and disappointment? Well maybe so. Maybe it truly is harder for some to cope with things. But we have to learn. We have to seek out wisdom and inspiration from different sources. I remember contemplating suicide many times in my life. So what helped me narrowly escape a rash decision?
Incident 1 :
Like when I was younger and kept moving from one block to another, from one city to another, to one state to another and then to another country I found myself unable to make long lasting friendships. It just wasn’t physically possible. I remember coming to back to India at age 14 and being called a slut because I could had lived in US and was probably had a “loose” character, i thought of about how it easy it would be to leave this unfair world because I felt truly alone.
But I think books saved me. In books I found life long friends who taught me things that have made me who I am. In books I could talk to a person who is deaf and understand how lucky I am to be able to hear but at the same time learn that the human mind is so powerful but it can outshine any physical deformity. In books I could talk to someone who lived hundreds of years ago on a farm and had to fend for themselves in every way. In books I learned about parallel universes, in dragons , in fairies and in enormous trees that reach far and wide and waged war on humans.
That’s how my life went on. Moving to a different place when my Dad felt he needed a fresh start. We would pack up all our things and go to a new house. We moved a total of 16 houses by the time I was 16. Well, i don’t always think of this as a bad thing. I remember seeing my friend’s houses where there were heights marked on the wall from when they grew up and thinking I could never have that. Well oh well i thought. I got to see so many places and talk to so many people. Would I have been someone completely different if my life was not the way it was. Well I guess we will never know.
Incident 2
I remember a year after my dad died and my mom lost her job and I was working as a software engineer trainee at Infosys. The trainee income was meager, a mere 13,000rs. I didn’t know how we could survive. All the dreams and visions for the future seemed impossible to achieve. A voice inside of me couldn’t understand how a 10th pass mother who lives to knit and cook , a BTech graduate who wanted to be an astronaut, and a 12th class pass out who wanted to be an architect would be able to do something that my dad gave up on. I was out with some friends on a trip that I could not afford but was forced to because they felt that would be good for me.
One of my friend, during the trip jokingly said while taking a picture of me that my smile was weird. That i wasn’t smiling well and the picture was not coming out well. I felt myself growing weak. I felt myself feeling immense panic. I looked at everyone’s faces and i felt like people were laughing at me. In my head I thought oh how unfair it was. That I was struggling inside to smile despite all my pain and here people are blind to it. They were merely joking of course but here I was thinking that there was no point in life.
I could jump off of that Ooty mountain and all the pain would disappear. I wouldn’t have to worry about how we will pay for the current bill. How much I missed my dad. How my mom would constantly break down and give up. How my sister would cry for hours missing dad and wondering how things would have been if he was around. Just the thought felt so peaceful. It felt so right. It felt like the easiest thing to do. All the struggles that I had felt and will possibly feel seemed to have vanished. I was amazed that just a small jump, a small walk to the edge of the cliff and it would all be over. All the laughter, all the cries.. All the wails.. Will surely vanish. My mind would be free from all these bodily pleasures. It was a magnificent moment. I think it was the moment that I felt most at peace in my entire life. I truly felt that it would be that easy. Then I remembered my sister’s face. My moms wails.. How much this would break their heart. What this might do to them.
I thought that by leaving this world I would take all of my pain, multiply it a thousand fold and give it to everyone I love. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t walk away from this. I felt scared. I felt scared for them, I felt scared of how more terrible their lives would become. If I just forget about attaining my peace today. Just this one moment if I forget about it. I would survive. I have to live, I thought to myself. I have to fight. The problems will not be solved if I leave this world. They would only multiply. Someone still has to fix them. I cannot let my pride and cowardice be the only thing I stood for. What about that little girl who wanted to be an astronaut? Would she have been proud of me? I could see the look of disappointment in her. All things I promised her..The things that I was curious to learn and experience. I could not take it away from her. What would my sister do? I remember holding her so many times as she cried for dad that we would be alright. That we need to fight. My mom who saw me grow up smart and promising that I would take care of things. I couldn’t leave them. What would happen to my boyfriend who stood outside the car that I locked myself in as I ran from the edge of the cliff.
I saw him standing helpless and stricken on what could have triggered this. Its funny how no one can truly feel and understand how you feel. Going through trauma at a young age makes you into either a better or worse person. And I thought to myself maybe that’s it. Maybe this is when I should choose if I will let this affect me in a good or bad way. Because suddenly my friend’s face did not look evil. They seemed concerned. They seemed to be completely shaken by what happened. I saw my boyfriend’s face, who stood there helpless and anguished.
I cried for a good 15 minutes and wiped my face and walked to them. I spent the rest of the day barely speaking much and I remember laughing and smiling the next day. Now here I am 10 years later, having travelled almost the entire Western part of the Unites States and seen truly wonderful things in life, I am greatful that I chose to step away from that cliff that day. Did my Personality influence my decision here?
Incident X:
There are so many more times when I felt this thought cross my mind, If I leave this world now how would it be. I thought about various scenarios of people’s life and how it would be effect if i chose to leave. I thought about what people would think of me. A loser? Someone who gave up? Some one who spoke big words but could’t bring them to action. No, I choose not to leave. I will leave when my time comes.
So How were my Dad and Sister different?
I know that they tried to live too. I remember my dad going to “Bhrahma Kumaris” which is a spiritual sect and meditating there. I remember him reading motivational and inspirational books. I used to see those books in the washroom and wondered what he must be going through. I thought at the age of 15 or 16 seeing him come home drunk after some business idea of his was not going the way he planned, how hard being an adult must be. I worked hard at school and tried to get good grades to make him proud of me. I remember feeling proud to show him my report card and tell him about my dreams to an astronaut. I wanted to work in ISRO or NASA. This was all I thought about till I was 16. I had a clear agenda in mind. Get good grades in school. Do Aeronautical engineering (even though he convinced me to take up Electrical since that would be more secure for women) , then go to the US to do Avionics. Work hard to get into NASA and I would be the happiest person in this world learning about galaxies and Space travel.
How different my life turned out to be. I think every child dreams of magnificent things. The world is open to them and then life happens. A few would not deter from their course in spite of hardships. All this I learned again depends on personality and situations in people’s lives.
I chose to get a job, any job after my dad died in my Engineering third year. I was taking tuitions for kids (from 5th to 9th class) throughout my Engineering and the money i got from it was 6000 Rs per month. I wanted to save up to get an Activa Scooty. That’s it! A simple dream and a simple goal. Boy it brought me great joy. To do what I love and get money from that. Isn’t that what everyone wants in life? Then things crashed and my world was torn apart. I never pitied myself because I saw people all around me showing that anyway. Now that I think back, being an ISTJ all this hurt my pride and I didn’t want to ask for help. I wanted to stand up on my own. I didn’t want the elders in my family to make decisions for us and run our lives.
Don’t get me wrong, we had help. My dad’s friends so shook from the decision he made contacted me and helped me open a Joint bank account. Everyone contributed as much as they could and gave us 5 lakh for my sister’s education. This was more than some people get. We were greatful. My sister worked hard too. We thought we would dig ourselves out of this. She joined Architecture College and worked hard. She spent late nights finishing assignments and did pretty well in college. But i remember a few times during her college days, she found the course work hard and cried and told me she wanted to quit.
I think back to those days even now. Wondering how things might have been different if I allowed her to quit college rather than encouraging her to continue. I remember telling her to do as much as she could and to enjoy what she was doing because she was good at it. I told her not to think of money because those things would come and go. Many people have told me after she died that maybe if she wasn’t an architect she wouldn’t have died. That if she pursued computer science and did a routine computer job just like everyone else, she would have been happy.
I think of this sometimes too. Wondering many times if my dad didn’t do what he did, would she have been happy. If she didn’t do architecture would have been happy. If she didn’t get PCOD, or had a lot of rich friends who seemed not to understand her, or if I didn’t leave the US for my Masters and career, would she have been happy?
I remember asking her to take a personality test for fun in 2021 and she told me she got “ENFJ-T“.
But its not that simple. Life doesn’t diverge and culminate due to a single choice you make in life. She might have not been satisfied with a regular CS job. She wasn’t good at Math and Science and didn’t enjoy it. If she had done a CS job, and felt frustrated with it, she would have been unhappy. What if she came for masters as a CS student and couldn’t get a job in 2024 and was in debt with 50,000$, she would have been unhappy. There are always reasons to be unhappy. I learned in my life that we alone have the choice to be unhappy. Not life, Not people around us. Not what happens to us.
If she got diagnosed with Cancer which is an incurable disease, she would have been unhappy. If she loved someone truly and he broke her heart, she would have been unhappy. Life is not the experiences we have. It is how we perceive it. We have to identify the weaknesses in our personality and mold them as we go on in life. We have to know our strengths and use them to get through the darkest times.
So, by understanding our strengths and weaknesses we should try to make changes and help us grow. No particular “Personality Type” is doomed to suicide or depression. We all face it when life throws at us situations that show our weaknesses, but we must remember our strengths for they are like the shields and swords with which we fight those demons that feed on our weaknesses.
Being an ISTJ, whenever I felt i wasn’t enough or that my ego was damaged I got suicidal thoughts. But I have learnt to control my ego. I have not mastered it but I use my “Ability to deepdive and research” to find ways I can learn to control my ego.
I am not saying I have cracked life. I surely did not. I do not know the secret to happiness. But for some reason my mind, heart and soul try to search for reasons to live. I thought of my sister and mom when my dad died and I wanted to leave this world because it was too hard. I now think of my husband and my future kid that I hope to bring into this world when I am plunged into darkness again.There are too many reasons not to live, but a greater more to live. Honestly, they are hard to think of. I think that is what we must do. Keep thinking of reasons to live. Everyday and every sec of our life.
