Robin Williams, Avicii, Anthony Bourdain, Chester Bennington, Hana Kimura, Haruma Miura, Kpop artists - Kim Jonghyun, Sulli, Goo-Hara.
I’m sure most of you have heard the names of these celebrities that we lost to suicide. There are many more celebrities I can name that died by suicide, and the saddest part of suicide is that it can happen to anybody. Society has for centuries disregarded the importance of mental health, thinking that they shouldn’t care simply because it won’t happen to them, that the mental problems of others don’t concern them in any form of manner or that it invokes feelings of ‘negativity’.
Suicide should be made aware to everyone and it's something everyone should be aware about. Why? That's because suicide can happen to the young, and even the old. Everyone.
I am sure we all heard of this : “Don’t talk about it lah, change topic, change topic.”
Before we begin, we need to know what suicide is, and how we should address it.
What is suicide?
According to CDC, suicide is defined as death caused by injuring oneself with the intent to die. A suicide attempt is when someone harms themselves with any intent to end their life, but they do not die as a result of their actions.
Note that we should not use the word ‘commit suicide’ as suicide is not a crime. Instead use ‘death by suicide’ or ‘died of suicide’. These words indicate some sense of achievement instead of viewing it as a tragedy. Mental health is stigmatized enough. When we say these words, we inflict more pain on them, signifying that they’re the problem when they are just trying their best to cope with things that are out of their control.
The list that I provided above were celebrities. But how about ordinary people?
I don’t need to give you world statistics to prove how devastating suicide rates are within a year. But I can give you the suicide rates in Malaysia and in our beloved state Sarawak. It hits harder when it’s closer to home.
Suicide Statistics in Malaysia
The pandemic has accounted for increasing rates of loneliness - financial losses, family relationships, romantic relationships, etc. Just the past years in Malaysia alone :
Malaysia records 3 daily suicides this year up till May 2021. After that, how many more - is the question.
As the pandemic surged, suicide doubled the 1.7 rate last year and in 2019.
1,708 cumulative deaths by suicide reported from 2019 until May this year, 83.5 per cent of victims were female, while the remaining 16.5 per cent were male.
More than half of the 1,708 victims were aged between 15-18 years with 872 cases, while 668 victims were aged 19-40. A total of 168 victims were aged above 40.
Please do not believe that just because suicide rates show more females, that means males should disregard their mental health and shouldn’t be aware about suicide. Among the small percentage, these could be your friends, family, or yourself. As such, please be mindful and empathetic towards your male friends and don’t call them weak or vulnerable because they never asked for it.
Source :
Let’s talk about Sarawak
27 cases of attempted suicide were recorded in Sarawak from January to June this year. (2021)
This showed an increase of 12.5 per cent compared to 22 attempted suicide cases recorded during the same period last year.
Among the causes of suicide cases include depression, financial difficulties, family problems, heartbreaks and anything involving emotions.
Source:
You do not need to look at statistics to tell that this is real and is happening. Sometimes, all it takes is to remember that you’ve heard about a girl or boy in the newspapers or social media attempting suicide or who died by suicide. Remember the guy at Kubah National Park, or the girl who died after the majority of her followers voted ‘yes’ on the Instagram poll, or the young swimmer? It has been a few years now, but incidents like these that have happened so close to home breaks my heart, and makes me wonder if they hoped that the world would be a nicer place, and if they wanted a better life.
If I show you numbers or facts, it doesn’t impact you as emotionally compared to me telling you that someone you know is among them. The closer we feel a connection to somebody, the more emotion we feel. When you look at that in perspective, think about the number of souls we are losing to suicide everyday.
And the most tragic thing is mental health is still stigmatized. This means that we are even losing the right as humans to feel because people judge us when we do. As a result, many of us believe that when we don’t have this right, we choose to keep silent.
What stigma does is that instead of giving someone courage, it gives them fear.
It prevents them from telling you what’s going on in their lives, because they know that people always have something insensitive to say. And we don’t like hearing things that will hurt us.
The longer a person bottles up their emotions, the more they will reach a breaking point.
Suicide vs Suicidal
When we hear news about suicide, we are flooded with emotions.
Words like : “Sad case, what a pity, why would she do that, those years of life have gone to waste, why didn’t she seek treatment, etc.”
But seldom we feel as overwhelmed with emotions when someone is telling you that they're suicidal. Why?
We placed a bet that it’s impossible that they’ll ever do it. We assume we know what they’re feeling, and because we do, we don’t pay attention to them.
We convince ourselves that they just made up stories in order to get pity.
We find it tiring to care and to give our support and love.
We think their problems are not ours to solve, and that’s why we don’t concern ourselves with it.
We are scared of saying the wrong things or we just don’t know what to say.
Another possibility is that we just aren’t aware about suicide enough to understand what they’re going through.
There are many reasons that I can name, but there's good news.
The good news is that we can be made more aware, and there are opportunities and resources out there to learn how to empathize, truly care and support someone. We are all not perfect and we make mistakes, but we are definitely capable of learning and becoming better everyday. Instead of blaming someone for being suicidal or pinning it on their lack of strength, we need to know that most times, the root problem is society.
As such, it takes a great amount of courage for an individual having suicidal thoughts to seek help because ultimately, they know that in the end that there is no one capable of bearing that responsibility for them other than themselves. I say they are courageous once again, because in a society that lacks love, they chose to believe in it again by loving themselves.
Until the day we recognize that we are all motivated by self-interest, satisfaction, or filled with ego and pride, it’s hard to empathize with someone. Which goes to show that being aware is such an important first step. All of us have some form of self-preservation in us and an additional layer of wall we built to prevent ourselves from talking about our feelings. In my experience, we sometimes avoid the topic of suicide with our friends because we are afraid to talk about it ourselves.
Don’t wait until it’s too late. Support and show care and genuine concern to those you know now. Not calling/texting them for your own self-interests, not calling/texting them to sell your products, and not calling/texting them only to gossip about their issues with others. It also doesn’t mean that just because you’re comfortable with a friend, you can joke about their feelings.
Just genuine care.
It is not right to judge someone for being suicidal and then claim to care for someone only after they’ve taken their own lives.
Knowing this matters.
It’s hard to talk about negative things, but the irony is that avoiding these creates a culture of toxic positivity and that things have to be sunshine and rainbows all the time. It avoids the problem, thinking that being ‘happy’ is the only, one right way to feel as a human.
It starts with you.
There’s zero cost when it comes to showing someone you truly care for them. Sometimes, what they need are not solutions to their problems, but for you to be with them, to listen to them and to be a shoulder to cry on. Don’t be afraid to ask them how they’re feeling.
Some will only recognize how important mental health and suicide is when they land at a dark place themselves. All humans are not exempted from hardships and failures. Sometimes, we think we have it all under control, but there might be a day in your life when your world suddenly falls apart or when you have lost everything you have and hold. Then at that very moment, you’ll know what it’s like to have no control of your life, to lose your way and purpose, to be in a state of deep sorrow and despair and you’ll know the pain of losing sleep to anxiety.
You will know sadness like other people know it and there’s no escaping that.
Then, would you still say that suicide doesn’t matter? Mental Health doesn’t matter? That emotions, feelings, thoughts - these don’t matter? That’s because you have them too.
We will never know what it’s like until it happens to us. They say we are all in different boats, but in the same storm. We all may not truly understand what one another is going through, but we don’t need to prove we understand. We just need to be there for each other.
This post isn’t that specific, but it gives a sort of overview to suicide and why we should care. In conjunction with World Suicide Prevention Day, we will be releasing a few articles on the topic of suicide to raise mental health awareness. This will probably stretch out even after WSPD, but we believe raising suicide awareness should not be just made on WSPD.
What do you think suicide is to you and what should people be more aware of? You can always DM/Contact us to let us know your thoughts.
If you're experiencing emotional problems, you are encouraged to contact trained volunteers at Befrienders Kuching by calling 082-268061 or emailing sam@befrienders.org.my.
The public can also contact Befrienders Malaysia at 03-76272929 or email sam@befrienderskch.org.my.
Befrienders is a non-profit organization that provides emotional support services 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to those who suffer from depression and have suicidal intentions.