If You Need Help

Trigger Warning; this story contains sensitive content on mental health and suicide.

“I just feel responsible, you know.” The sound of whispering prompts Aidan to glance up at the two girls who’ve entered the library. “Maybe there was something I could’ve done...”

“But how were you to know he needed help?” Her friend reassures her. “He didn’t even know it himself.” The girls cease their chattering as they approach the desks so as not to disturb the other students.

Aidan sighs, finding himself faced with yet another lecture slide on ‘colorectal cancer’. His exam is tomorrow but he hasn’t done a tap! For the past few months, studying, like most things in life, has felt pointless. Several of his classmates were pressured into medicine by their parents but that isn’t the case for Aidan. He’s here on his own volition. Although, he struggles to remember why.

Aidan wanted to become a doctor so he could help people. People in need of help; like his cousin who died of leukaemia or his neighbour who was paralysed by a car accident last year.

Aidan knew he was lucky. He had a loving family, supportive friends, financial stability and, most importantly, his health. He wanted to give something back.

So, he didn’t mind on orientation week that while everyone else was out enjoying ‘Freshers Fair’, he was stuck in the anatomy lab, staring at his first dead body. He wasn’t phased when a lecturer greeted him with a menacing ‘so you want to be a doctor?’ followed by a truckload of work. He never complained that his summers were half the length of students’ in other courses. Because being a doctor meant making sacrifices.

Aidan looks out the window at the group of boys playing frisbee on the cricket pitch. Back in first year he might have wished he could join them but now, three years on, he reckons he wouldn’t even enjoy it. The guilt would be too much. Every second spent catching a frisbee is a second that could have saved a life. Come on! He urges himself to focus. Your patient will die of colorectal cancer if you don’t learn this! But so what if they die? People are destroying the earth anyway; you might be doing the world a favour. The thought flits across his mind sending him into a spasm of guilt. He glances fervently around the room at his unsuspecting peers. Nobody here knows he’s a monster. His eyes meet with Pam’s across the table. She gives him a tired smile. He fakes one back at her as he wonders how he managed to trick such a wonderful person into being his friend.

He looks back at the slide, tries to read the words but they blur through his tears. He quickly blinks them away. He doesn’t deserve to cry. His neighbour deserves to cry, his cousin deserved to cry. Even Pam has reason for tears – at least when she’s on her period. But a young, white male like himself? Well, he has nothing to cry about. Aidan knows he’s been spoilt by his parents. He knows he’s a lazy, self-absorbed loser. His inner voice reminds him of this constantly. You’re not good enough. Nobody wants you here. You’re a burden. You’ll never be a good doctor. You’ll never be good at anything. You don’t have what it takes. The thoughts race around his head over and over and over again. He’s reading the words on the slide but all he can hear is his thoughts.

He gets up and walks to the bathroom. Different societies have stuck flyers on the stall door. CALL US IF YOU NEED HELP, one of them says. It’s for the student counselling service. Aidan doesn’t give it a second thought. He was only reading the flyers to pass the time while he tried to clear his head. The thoughts are going nowhere though. By the time he returns to the library, they’ve only become louder.

The bell rings making him jump. The library will close in twenty minutes. He’s going to fail his exam. He stops breathing for a moment. Not intentionally, in fact, he doesn’t realise he’s been holding his breath until he feels a choking sensation in his throat. He tries to take deep breaths to calm himself, but his chest is so tight that each breath comes like a sharp stab. He senses people watching him, the room seems stuffier, closed in. Why doesn’t someone open a window? He walks over to the balcony to get some air. Looking out over the campus as the last dregs of sunlight drain from the sky, he wonders what it’s all for. He can’t remember a time when he wasn’t consumed by fear.

He used to be happy but he can’t imagine how it felt, to be genuinely happy. Not faking a smile so he doesn’t upset someone, not binge-watching Netflix to escape how he feels, but to be genuinely happy. Maybe that was something you only got as a child. No wonder people always say, ‘childhood is the best years of your life.’ He turns to look inside the library and scans the gloomy faces of the other students as they memorise information like zombies. Perhaps growing up means putting up with misery and he’s just too weak to cope.

The idea of not being able to cope terrifies Aidan. But with every passing day the possibility of failure becomes increasingly likely. Not just failing his exams but failing life! Fortunately, Aidan has a plan for the worst-case scenario. He hasn’t told anyone about it, he hopes it won’t happen but it’s comforting to know it’s there…just incase.

The bell rings to signify that the library is closing but Aidan doesn’t hear it. He is submerged in his thoughts. I’m going to fail my exam and throw my parents’ money down the drain. I don’t deserve my life. I don’t deserve to be alive. I am not enough. I am not enough. I am not enou…

He jumps.

In the ground floor office, the dean of medicine hears a girl scream as he bights into his second jam doughnut of the day. His door bursts open revealing his secretary who gasps for breath before informing him that a student has jumped from the third-floor balcony.

The dean rolls his eyes. Thanks to this student’s rash behaviour the reputation of the college is in jeopardy – not to mention his own.

“Send out an e-mail to his class. Tell them to contact student counselling if they need help.”