TODAYonline | Hot News | 401 suicides last year: SOS

TODAYonline Hot News 401 suicides last year: SOS

From a mother's perspective, this is possibly the most gut-wrenching tragedy to experience: that of your child taking his or her own life. The guilt that consumes soon-after, the horrible realisation a loved one was calling out for help, and nobody responded or even realised something was wrong.

All it takes is that little nudge to throw things off balance. And then it's too late. A life lost. And the effects are irreversible.

There are a plethora of reasons why someone would want to contemplate suicide: being driven to a corner, feeling desperate, lost and helpless, with seemingly no way out.

I've been there. Although it was an abrupt decision that stayed for all three seconds and vanished promptly, the fact remained that the idea was tempting.

This happened many years ago, when I was about 15 or 16. The usual combination of pressure from parents, school work, identity crisis, self-doubt etc. resulted in the creation of an emotional wreck.

I was having difficulty coping with school work: flunking Mathematics, Physics and Chinese continuously. It didn't help that my friends were brilliant students who constantly obtained no less than distinctions when I was struggling to scrape through. This in turn affected my other subjects like English, Literature and History which I sometimes sacrificed in order to spend more time on my weaker ones. Unfortunately for me, I had to choose a Science combination at school because that was the only option available and for the longest time, I loathed this because I was clearly an Arts student.

Of course, there was the usual range of relationship issues which plague teenagers incessantly: crushes, infatuations, situations of being sandwiched between friends and lovers etc. I was caught up in many of these intricate webs and it was an exhausting affair to extricate myself out of complicated messes.

My parents were not very expressive (save for the usual torrent of verbal lashings which were aimed at my incompetence, laziness and overall appalling behaviour) and couldn't deal with the changes their teenager was going through. I was an emo kid. Back in the 80s and 90s, this term hadn't been coined yet, but yes, I definitely was emo.

I managed to overcome my personal issues with the help of friends, the same wonderful bunch whose names were pinned up on the board when the 'O' level results were released - the ones who got 10/9/8/7/6 distinctions. They didn't care if I was "academically challenged" and didn't laugh when I managed to secure 2 distinctions (a pale comparison to their 10/8/9/7/6) and I think that encouraged and motivated me. Though we aren't as close as we are today because our own work and family commitments, I'm thankful and grateful that they provided listening ears and kind words, and pulled me back from the brink.

As a teen, I discovered another way to overcome my little pockets of depression: writing. I churned out several short stories and poems whenever I became moody in school. And it's a practice I still continue till this day, as you can plainly see. For me, writing is therapeutic although to some others, it's viewed as a complete waste of time. Personally I think it's rude and inconsiderate to comment otherwise. Everyone has different coping mechanisms and strategies and we should all learn to accommodate each other.

My reasoning, no matter how clouded it was back in those dark days, was much influenced by emotions and sense of responsibility. Perhaps that was also my saving grace because I immediately felt ashamed about even daring to entertain the possibility of ending my own life. I couldn't bear the thought of hurting my own parents through my selfish, foolish and ridiculous actions.

This entry didn't start out as a pouring-of-woes confession. That was hardly my intention at all. But, as usual, now that it's out in the open, I feel like a burden has been lifted because very few people actually knew what I was going through when I was younger, that I even harboured such terrible thoughts.

Back to my original point. Suicide is a cruel and painful way of leaving this world. Cruel and painful to the ones who have to continue the journey of life with memories of what-could-have-beens. Perhaps the 401 people who terminated their own lives should have pondered over this a little more before they executed their deadly actions.