TIFU by watching a video about 9/11 before going to bed

First of all, my heart goes to everyone who died there and who lost their loved one. Even so many years after it still doesn’t feel real. I was not aware how actually bad it was, and part of it is why this whole thing happened.

So I was going through Youtube looking for something to watch before going to sleep, and I’ve found MrBallen’s video published on 20th anniversary of 9/11 attack. I’ve never actually watched any interviews with victims, or any deep analysis of such events, but I’ve wanted to learn more because I’m not American and any news here are very terse. Also, I value knowledge and it brings me deeper respect.

So MrBallen’s video is the first real reiteration of 9/11 I’ve watched. Even though the video starts with multiple warnings, I still watched. He is an amazing storyteller, it literally felt like I was there. The story was told from perspective of Michael, one of the survivors, and it detailed everything from the day he came to work, until he crawled out of debris and walked to his brother’s workplace.

I was not ready for this. I thought I could handle it, but the description of people jumping from the building while trying to use makeshift parachutes that simply got torn from their hands as they jumped, the people who got trapped and sent messages to their loved ones, how Michael covered his face in vain attempt to not see all the bodies between south and north buildings in front of the lobby’s door, the face of the firefighter who walked up the stairs knowing he won’t come back.

So many people like us, like me, people with families, with lives and hopes lost their life, and it’s just haunting. I watched it and I literally couldn’t fall asleep for hours. I guess it’s my fuck up for not believing trigger warnings before I watched the video, but at least now I have a deeper appreciation for what people actually went through.

Tl;dr I watched 9/11 video before going to bed and traumatized myself.