Triggers: One More Light not Last Resort

“Should have stayed, are the signs I ignored.”

Triggers. A “trigger warning”, normally a very short one if you’re listening to a podcast, is to let you know that what is about to be mentioned might upset you more than other people due to either your past traumas or a weak constitution. So I thought, and in a way I was right, but I'm wrong.

Trigger warnings always seemed like pandering to pussies, to me. I have seen death, I’ve seen cancer, shootings and old age rip the life from people. I survived mentally, mostly, until I tried not to, but I lucked out and didn’t die. Grow up, make a joke about it and move on. It all goes away in the end, both meta and physically.

Recently I had a friend kill herself and as someone who tried the same thing and apparently isn’t very good at it, it hit me much harder than I expected. People die, it should be a right but it shouldn't be one mistake. Anna’s death was a gut punch worse than any other and that includes my closest (although he was closest to everyone) friend. That was cancer, Anna was different.

Anna killed herself. Her last resort.

She thought.

I’ve stupidly listened to her last voice notes a few times. Now I can see through it, but she was so upbeat even describing the awfulness she was in. It ruins me, selfishly. Me. I have had to have treatment, and I hate treatment. Asking the same questions and never getting anywhere if I don’t want them to. But I had to, and it has helped. I’m not having omnipresent visions of Anna killing herself, or trying to talk to me as a rotting corpse, anymore.

My teeth shattered to the point I asked for money towards fixing them for my 40th, waking up in a confusion seeing it all. At one point she cut her hands off with a piano, logically it doesn't work but it ain't nice to see, even if "at sleep".

I've always reserved the right to my opinion until evidence proves me wrong. Evidence has proved me wrong. There is one song which sets me off, triggers me: Papa Roach's Last Resort. As an angsty teen I loved the song, along with System of a Down and everything Linkin Park. Living with depression, especially after my friend died of cancer, I identified with Chester Bennington’s more and more raw, thoughtful persona.

Then he killed himself. Listen to his music. We should have known.

Linkin Park’s One More Light is a soulful lament on chosen death, though a hand reaching out. Papa Roach almost celebrate suicide in my eyes, now, as someone who used to jump around drunk and stoned to it. I am triggered and that is me, I know that is me. Last Resort is a good song and other people are welcome to it; I’ll eat humble pie on triggers and say goodbye again in my head while I well up and ask for it to be turned off.

Listening to Anna’s voice notes hurts because I knew, I should have known, and I cared. She should have stayed. One more light.

UPDATE: I can now listen to Last Resort without crying. Time flies, eh. I have not gone back to the voice notes, because I know I shouldn't. I'll miss Anna desperately, but I'll remember the good times.