Trigger Warning: This article contains descriptions of suicide attempts and depressive episodes.
This article contains spoilers for Undertale’s Neutral and True Pacifist Route.
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There’s a kid sitting on the roof of a house. They’re only two stories up, but they think they’re high enough. They’ve been up there for a couple hours.
See, they climbed up there to kill themselves. But then they got scared, and got stuck. But someone would definitely notice they were missing, and come for them, right?
But nobody came.
It starts to rain, they start to cry. They are too scared to climb back into the window they climbed out of, and they hate themselves for even trying.
But nobody came.
It becomes more and more obvious to them, they think, that maybe they should jump after all. Because if someone cared, they’d have come by now. They call for help.
But nobody came.
—
2.5 hours later, they realized I was missing and pulled me down from the roof. The neighbors were the ones who alerted that I was missing.
—
My parents divorce was a rough time for my siblings and I. It also would be the first of many triggering points that would set off different mental changes in us all. They got divorced when I was about 10 or 11 and it’d be a good 13 years before they made up with each other.
It was rough for all of us, and I was the first to give up. I still feel guilty about that, all these years later. Because, in my head, I was going to be the Perfect Kid. I was going to not be emotional, be supportive of my siblings, help my parents. That sort of thing.
Obviously, about six months in, that failed miserably and they pulled me off the roof for my first of a few suicide attempts. Then came counseling, and me denying anything was wrong. I either convinced the counselors that I was fine or they knew they couldn’t help me and let me out of therapy, but I was the first of the siblings to be “cleared.” I probably wasn’t ready, but I moved on.
At least I thought I did.
—
We just recently passed Undertale’s 1 Year Anniversary, and a lot of feelings about the game were reawoken when my friends and I started talking about the different emotions, different theories, different everything that we discovered by playing this game. And then these memories started to surface.
See, when I last wrote about Undertale, I talked about this specific fight with Flowey and how it shook me up so badly that my partner had to break me from the game space and remind me that no, I was not alone. This whole fight is Flowey mentally breaking you, the player, down, while physically destroying the Player Character over and over again. It’s not an easy fight, mentally or to play. There’s a lot going on, and if you’re like me, “Photoshop Flowey” is not an easy sight.
So having the narrative running over it, the futile calling for help, the constant reminder that nobody came.
I wasn’t prepared for it, and now I’m convinced it’s because, for a second, I was back on that damn roof.
If you’ve played the game, you understand that, after calling for help a number of times, the SOULs of the other Fallen Humans rise to help you, and somebody came. And you win, by Determination and with Help.
And then, if you are like me, you go back to get the REAL Ending.
—
Of course, I had no idea I was working through my own problems when I hit the True Lab, hoping to help out Alphys. You know, Alphys, with her depression and her failures and her struggle to forgive herself for all the things that went wrong because of her.
And the chorus starts again, with all the Amalgamations. But Nobody Came. But Nobody Came. And over and over, I’m whispering please stop saying that, I’m right here. But I understood them, completely. At their most terrified moment, they felt alone and they reached out for someone, for anyone, and nobody came.
And then you show up. And you help. And you help Alphys. You are the Somebody.
I had that Somebody, back then. I just didn’t see them. My best friends, outside of the conflict. I just didn’t want them to know. It was like Alphys, carrying that weight and letting it consume her to the point of ruin. I would have let it destroy me; I wanted it to. I was scared of letting down the people I cared about most, scared of giving them my burden, so I hid it away deep and let it fester.
Alphys goes to confront her mistake, and she’s worried she might not come back. Not because the Amalgamations are dangerous, really. But because she, when faced with her own life and choices, couldn’t tell if she would keep running away. As the player character, you help her face this, and help her, and the Amalgamations, find happiness.
It wouldn’t be that easy for me, obviously. 1s and 0s don’t fix trauma, but it was this that started to point out to me why Flowey’s fight hurt so bad. As I pressed forward, I wondered if I would be ready for what I faced next.
—
Everyone’s there. I realized this, staring there, after Toriel had basically just punted Flowey into next week, that Everyone had been there when I fought Flowey the first time. I –and the player character–just couldn’t hear them
Of course, this game never lets you off easy, and the next thing you know:
For a moment, I saw double. On one side, Flowey’s taunting me as he holds all my friends in his vines, destroying them. On the other side, I see all the times I made my friends cry and all the times I let them down. I’m back on the roof, in front of the car, staring at the pill bottle, holding the knife…
I want to be forgiven just as badly as Flowey wants to be Asriel again. I want to forgive myself. He wants to be whole.
He screams and cries as you bring your friends one by one back from the Void. But they had already SAVED you and you know it. And that’s why, when Asriel starts tries to destroy your Soul…well. “But it Refused.”
The strength we receive from those who support us, those who love us, makes us strong enough to defy any hardship.
And then
In the game, this means Asriel. It means Flowey.
Outside of the game, I knew it meant I need to save myself.
—
Undertale is an emotional, personal game for many people. Different points in the narrative stir up different memories, good and bad. It shines light on human nature and on tough choices. It brings up the loneliness anxiety and depression can instill on you, when there seems to be no way out and nobody around.
The theme song for the True Pacifist final battle is called “Hopes and Dreams/SAVE the World.” But there’s an “official” fan cover of it called “Catharsis.” To me, that’s an incredibly fitting name. THe final battle is catharsis for so many things, in the game and out of it.
So, a year after the game came out and about six months after I beat it myself, I found myself realizing that during that time I stared into the Void, wishing myself to ruin, I did have people there. And those people are still there, still supporting me.
My last suicide attempt was about three years ago. While I still have ideation from time to time, still find myself falling, I am aware that I’m working now towards a happy ending.
Undertale was just one of the ways I was able to face off against these thoughts, and realize those who I need to support me, and how I, in turn, can support them.
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And Everybody Came. In the end, that’s what happened.
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