Yesterday, 10 October marked World Mental Health Day. The day was set up by the World Federation for Mental Health and it was first celebrated in 1992 with a specific theme.

World Mental Health Day celebrates awareness for the global community in an empathetic way, with a unifying voice, helping those feel hopeful by empowering them to take action and to create lasting change.

https://wfmh.global/world-mental-health-day-2019/

This year’s theme for the World Mental Health Day is ‘Suicide Prevention and it’s something that resonated with me, especially among children and young adults.

A couple of weeks back, I was browsing through a sub-reddit about the O level exams in Singapore and I read a thread about a young person (I am not sure of the sex) who was so troubled about his/her performance in the O level exam, that they were contemplating suicide. I teared up reading the thread and really hoped that this person took the help of someone who could counsel them and make them look at life in a different way.

I also feared that GG would do something stupid like this when she got her PSLE results almost four years back. She didn’t do as well as expected and the backlash from S and his family was quite bad. I had to literally scold him and ask him if he could live with himself if she took any extreme step and that pulled him up. He was able to then put aside his disappointment in her results and started bolstering her up.

According to the World Health Organisation, “if we don’t act urgently, by 2030 depression will be the leading illness globally.” Suicidal behaviour has existed as long as humans have walked the earth, but these days it has exploded exponentially because of the various complex factors and these days it has reached fairly alarming levels. Close to 800,000 people on a global level take their own lives on a yearly basis, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) and there are the countless number who fail in their attempt. Every suicide is a tragedy which affects the families of those who commit suicide and this has long-lasting effects on those who are left behind. Parents and family members keep torturing themselves why they didn’t see the signs and what they could have done to prevent it.

What’s worse is that suicide is the leading cause of death among young people, especially the 15-29 year group. It is often believed that it is only adults who exhibit suicidal behaviours, but it should be made known that many children and young people engage in this kind of behaviour as a result of violence, sexual abuse, bullying and cyberbullying.

Suicide is a global public health epidemic that really deserves the attention of everyone – the scientific community, governments, mental health professionals, caregivers, parents and family members. The problem is that such issues are considered taboo and most people shy away from talking about it even if they know someone is suffering from a mental illness. Even in any community, if you hear of someone having such thoughts, you don’t reach out to them to get help, or even reach the authorities to help them. Getting people to talk about a subject that tends to be taboo and about which many hold mistaken and prejudiced ideas will help the community to learn about the risk factors so that they can identify and learn to address them.

Most experts’ say that suicide is preventable and can be avoided Many times, people who suffer from mental illness lack access to mental health services, sometimes because there are no services in their community and sometimes because they must wait months to be seen. So if you see or hear about someone who you think is suffering from a mental illness, make sure you reach out to them and offer help, even if it’s just a shoulder for them to cry or vent upon.

Here’s a WHO link to access a video series on what emergency workers, health workers, teachers and employers can do to help prevent suicide.

And here’s another WHO link on the handouts that emergency workers, health workers, teachers, prison officers, media professionals and employers can do to help prevent suicide