I am a bystander.

We all have weird things that we do when we have to cope with difficult news. Mine was lying on my bathroom floor feeling helpless as fuck. I haven't done that in years till the other day when I got some disturbing news. Someone very close to me tried to take his life twice in a span of 8 hours.

He has mental health issues but they weren’t taken as seriously as they should have been and unfortunately it led him to the roof but somehow his friend talked him out of it over the phone.

It’s not my story to tell so these are the only details that I’m sharing that also to help me cope with how I feel. You don’t realise what kind of a toll it takes on you until you’re in that situation, when you find out that someone you love went to THAT extreme to hurt themselves.

What do you do in that situation? Is there a proper way to deal with your emotions when something like this happens? It’s been two days and I haven’t been able to get out of that shock yet, I literally have to force myself to feel better.

I know you’re supposed to go through it naturally by feeling everything and then getting out of it eventually but I have this constant nauseating feeling due to anxiousness that I don’t like at all.

How are we, the close bystanders supposed to deal with such things especially those who have a saviour complex. Is there a manual?