Dying is Easy, Let’s Live!

The movie “Suicide Squad” (2016) possessed a precious short conversation where the Joker asked Harley Quinn, “Would you die for me?” When Harley answered yes, the Joker replied, “That's too easy. Would you live for me?” Yes! Dying is easy, actual battle is living. The suicide estimation of World Health Organization (WHO) in 2012 has doodled the picture quite clearly. It has published that over 800,000 people die each year due to suicide. Also, according to Suicide.org, the global suicide rate is 16 per 100,000 population which has increased to 60% in the past 45 years. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has claimed suicide as the tenth leading cause of death for all ages in 2013. On average, one person dies by suicide every 40 seconds somewhere in the world. Isn’t that a wakeup call? Doesn’t the estimation suffice how hard it is to live?

In 1993, a 6-year old girl living in Florida stepped in front of a train. She left a note saying that she "wanted to be with her mother" who recently died from a terminal illness. This is the power of the human mind. A little girl thinks of the past and imagines a future that is so bleak, so devoid of meaningful moments without her mom, that she takes her own life. In 2014, 33 years old Nirmala, a housewife in Amarpura hanged herself to death because of harassing from in laws. In 2001, a 65 years old man in Rajshahi took poison and caught the flight of departure from earth just because his children made him feel unwanted. All the stories are casted in the same mold—depression. In point of fact, depression does not discriminate. It smites the young and old alike. Just to revive our sleepy conscience, a few days back we had two incidents of suicide in Bangladesh. One was a teenager girl whose boyfriend had cheated on her and another was a middle aged woman who was unhappy in her married life. These stories can go on, like infinity—available without much ado—floating as contemporary fairy tales around us—taking the headline of daily newspapers ever and anon!   

The same mental tools that differentiate us from other animals, the same mental tools that acquiesce us to untangle problems and invoke creativity that give us symbolic immortality are the same tools that allow a 6-year old to contemplate a future that is terrible enough to physically leap into an oncoming train. Correspondingly, the mental strength that has once conquered the battle of edifying a family suddenly comes to an end and hands over the poison to the grandfather who is supposed to be surrounded by little kiddos. Then again, the brain that have let that girl achieve charismatic results in academic life, fools her to prefer death over life because of one heartbreak. Isn’t it the high time to sort things out? If a 6-year old has the cognitive capacity to kill herself, then we really need to step up our endeavor to infer and prevent it from happening.

Why people commit suicide? Simple and complex question simultaneously. In a journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, researchers dissected 20 suicide notes written by people who had attempted suicide with 20 notes written by people who successfully committed suicide. After that, the notes were evaluated on 5 dimensions: sense of burden (would my loved ones be better off without me?), sense of emotional pain (how much suffering is in my life?), escaping negative feelings (is death the answer to ending this pain?), altered social world (is death the answer to my troublesome social relationships?, and hopelessness (is there evidence that life is going to get any better?). They come up with a possible reason which is- people do not commit suicide because they are in pain, they commit suicide because they don't believe there is a reason to live and the world will be better off without them.

Even if people leave suicide notes, the question is still a matter of lingering—why did they feel that way? We get it, they had felt depressed, unwanted, lonely, heartbroken and the list can go on. But the question remains, why? People who've survived suicide attempts have reported wanting not so much to die as to stop living, a strange dichotomy but a valid one nevertheless. If some in-between state existed, some other alternative to death, I suspect many suicidal people would take it.

If happiness was the answer to all question, developed countries would be on the peak of less suicidal rate. Isn’t so? But the assessment evinces antipodal results. Numerous studies have shown that places like Denmark and Sweden that consistently score high on measures of happiness and life satisfaction also have relatively high suicide rates. On the other hand, African countries usually stays at the bottom of the list defiance of their poverty, health and education condition. Therefore, if happiness is not the prevention, the question arises again- what is? The secret is— knowing and believing every frustration, breakdown, pain, depression, emptiness we go through—that’s the part of life or in wider terms that’s the beauty of life.

There comes time in life when the liveliest boy discovers himself in a distant land where every loving person of his life seems far far away. The reason can be anything, heart break, failure, inferiority, broken family, bullying or something he can’t even explain. Incessantly, the newly married girl, going through physical and mental torture locks herself in the room. Suddenly, she finds herself in a position where she doesn’t belong to anywhere, neither to his in laws, nor to her parents. An event to cry over? May be. The solution is suicide? No! They just need to know, no matter how long the tunnel is, there’s always light at the end of it. Likewise, suffering may be intense than ever, but there is always a way out.

Problem emerges from family. In developed countries, parents often forget to pay heed to child’s mental transformation due of their uptight schedule, on the other hand, thinking about mental health is a stereotypical issue or a matter of show-off in developing countries. In both ways, the loss is ours. However, developed countries has signified mental health in such a level that they have created different therapies, sessions, campaigns regarding this. Unfortunately, they have forgot to include themselves in it in the process of commercialization. Hence, rate of suicide is skyrocketing in USA, UK and Scandinavian countries. The scenario is somewhat different in developing countries. Most of the suicides are usually because of failure, unfulfillment, heartbreak or marital tantrums. All these are result of unconcerned mental health. Attempting person have no clue when he/she has traversed the long bridge of “chronic depression” and has reached to the place where nothing matters anymore. Suicide due to heart break is a common phenomenon over the world. I really sometimes wonder what do people think when they give up their life for one person. The life he/she is having is the accumulation of several people’s love, affection and hard work. Then how it becomes so easy to give all that up for one person? May be because we disregard the fact that apart from the five basic needs, there is a need much more important than those—mind. We forget to talk about it, analyze it and take care of it. Parents forget to become friends in the process of being parent-y and that’s where they lose their child to “the lover” who didn’t even exist few days back.

Certainly, prevention has to bloom from the same branch of problem. Firstly, family has to take its place on a “friendly” zone where the members can open up themselves even if in times of crimes. Peer group plays a vital role in anyone’s life which should be inspiring and also, protective from any kind bullying or inferiority issues. These things can lead to a less judgmental society which eventually will demote the suicide rate drastically. Let your partner, child whoever it is consult to you whenever they have a heart break or failure or anything. Let your girl come up with courage after a truculent rape. Let your daughter speak up against physical torture and come out of it. Once you let the voice rise, all the secret weeping in silent corners will stop, all the sighs will be succored and may be one person will take a step backward from suicide. Indisputably, the prevention process is a two way road.  Suffered person also has to open up, communicate to his/her near ones. Moreover, people need to learn from their sorrows. “I am proud of the scars in my soul. They remind me that I have an intense life”, famous writer Paulo Coelho once remarked. Struggles make life beautiful, thereupon, try to make something creative out of it, positive out of it. There’s always a low suicide rate in under-developed countries. Any idea why? Bamituni Abamu, professor of economics at Middlebury College beautifully demonstrated, “Poor people in developing countries survive and often find pleasure in their hard lives. There are few suicides in the poorest countries. Who has time for suicide? You’re too busy surviving.” Therefore, embrace the thought that having hard times is nature’s way of making you strong.  Believe in the positivity that life will be delightful no matter how many storms it passes. There’s a popular saying, “it’s a bad day, not a bad life”. Let’s all believe in that. Let’s recognize mental health as significant matter and pour our heart into it no matter how busy our schedule is. Let’s live!    

The writer is schooling with BRAC University. She can be reached at ishrataftab121@gmail.com.