There is a chaos in George’s house today. George, my neighbor, and my childhood friend attempted suicide last night. He is admitted to hospital and his life is still in danger. I am feeling guilty because I didn’t bother to listen to him carefully when we met last weekend. He wanted to share something indirectly, but I was too busy to concentrate on his problems.
This incidence forced me to investigate the cause of life ending attempts by people. I believe it needs a lot of courage to take this painful step. I have understood that suicide is not an instant decision of the mind, but a long process of rushing to the conclusion, a permanent solution.
The general causes of suicide and an attempt to understand the journey of thoughts in the suicide-triggered mind can be explained as:
- Self-blame: This has been identified as a leading cause of suicide when the persons start blaming them for some bad incident. They start eradicating all positive appraisals and feel exposed to suicidal ideas.
- Depression: It is a feeling of isolation from the world. They start assuming they are a burden to others. The situation becomes worst when depression is mixed with hopelessness and a feeling of quitting everything to get rid of negative circumstances of their meaningless life emerges.
- Financial Loss: The feeling of money loss, unable to repay the loan amount to the bank, debt from other people have been proven as one of the leading causes of suicide. Examples are Indian farmers who left with no option, but killing themselves, thinking it as a “Quick heal”.
- Physical and Sexual Abuse: Women are the main victim of sexual and physical abuse and tend to get rid of permanently by attempting suicide when society manipulate their thoughts that only they are responsible for the problems in their life. A study reveals that the sexual abuse experienced people are more likely to show emotional toll and suicidal tendencies. Society’s view on rape victims is insisting them to get rid of forever denial and utter discomfort by picking suicide as an option.
- The Loss of a Loved One: Some people are not able to take the burden of their beloved one’s loss in their life. It results in symptoms of multiple forms of psychiatric disorders. The unexpected death of closed ones is the most frequently experienced emotional devastating and results into trauma and suicidal mind.
- Loss of a Job: The grief comes in various stages and not at once. The feeling that they are not enough to survive now;the feeling of downtime, failure, and hopelessness.When self-dependency of a human fades away when people start losing self-confidence, when the job is snatched from their hands and they are unable to accept the rejection, the feeling of ending an unpleasant future emerges.
- Physical Lifetime Disease: The anxiety that their body is not serving any purpose now. That their life is motionless and they will never experience anything new. The wrong belief that for the world they are useless and not less than dead now. Such people are not able to cope up with the emotional pain and start thinking toxic.
We, as a society, are responsible for ignoring these extremities of focus. Suicide is everywhere – in the family, in the colleges, in the city, in the state, in the country, and all around the neighborhood. Hiding and ignoring the problem is just making it worse. Please pay attention to your friends and people around you. Never neglect their situation and try to be with them in ups and downs.
We should encourage a person with problems & a troubled mind to seek personal or professional help. People with suicidal tendencies should accept that no permanent solution exists to some situations. They must be courageous to face temporary problems in their life. Remember, suicide is not cured but then treatment is possible.
Choose life over suicide! Live for Yourself, Live for your loved ones.
