Small incident

Just walked past a group of secondary school students and saw that they were standing in the middle of nowhere and all of them were focusing on one of the girls. One guy was supporting her from behind, she seemed weak and in distress. In a moment of seconds, she fell to the ground. I didn't think she fainted, but she was in tears and looked very fragile. Passerbys stopped on their tracks to observe them, curious about what's happening to the poor girl. A few went forward to investigate more. I was tempted too, but I gotta go school. Plus, with a big bunch of them, they should be able to do something. So I went ahead and left the scene. Soon the station was alerted by some kind passerby and they brought a wheelchair to bring her to somewhere else. Could see she was sobbing, and I think the guy by her side throughout was her bf.

Could enter the psychology textbook as a small example of the Bystander effect. Although the classic case of the lady who was murdered with over 30 witness in the night was the most commonly used one, situations like this could be seen in everyday's happenings. Even I, who knows the existence of such theory, refused to step forward and offer help, but instead, comfort in knowing that there's a high probability that the girl in trouble would get help soon.

Then again, I was wondering if the opposite was to happen, that a whole bunch of ppl decides to crowd about and see what they can do, would that really help? Would it worsen the situation? Perhaps for those having agoraphobia or social phobia.

Was she having a panic attack? That was my first guess. Her right hand was over her chest, possibly signaling acute pain in the heart. I haven't really saw a true case of shortness of breaths before, but by judging from what I imagined. It was more of a traumatic attack that cause her to weaken and fall to the ground rather than struggling to catch her breath. So, perhaps a trauma hit? Could it so serious? Or maybe some other illness that cause a sudden pain in the heart; heart attack? Doesn't seem probable also becuz that would have been
more serious. And as I thought about this, it seemed that I care about the reason than the girl's well being. Gotta admit, that's a yes. Haha...

I have been thinking about psychology ever since I got stumped during my recent interview when the doc asked me. Why did I choose psychology? I replied in a pretty bullshit way then, but Im beginning to wonder more on what I'm truly interested in. It's easy to say follow your heart and you will find the road. But as how things are, I can only say which paths I'm definitely not in favor of. Research is not a big interest, perhaps becuz I don't see it getting implemented. Things on the paper are just on the paper. The old Chinese saying of 纸上谈兵 just isn't all that appealing to me. And so far, all my hopes of psych related work in future are pretty linked to execution. I know before that would be the usual research and experiment, but I'm sure that would be more fun than the papers I have done in school. After this sem, I should really take some time off to find myself, yet again.

Life's a pain in the ass when there's no directions.