REASONS TO STAY ALIVE

TRIGGER WARNING: MENTAL ILLNESS, DEPRESSION, SUICIDE

I found out two days ago that a kid who was in the year above me at high school committed suicide this week. I didn’t personally know this person; I just kind of knew their face and their name, so I was surprised to find myself really upset by the news. Ironically, I also recently finished reading Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig, and I was going to post a review of this book, but I feel like it’s much more important to have this discussion in the wake of this awful tragedy.

Suicide is one of those things that we can’t really understand and try not to think about too seriously unless or until it is happening to people close to us. We know it happens, but we never think it will happen to us. Now, obviously the case hasn’t happened to me, per se, as the victim here and I didn’t know each other, but although I’m pretty far removed, I am still close enough to the eye of this storm to feel affected. I watched the bomb hit, but I was far enough away that I only felt a slight breeze. Naturally, the immediate question that entered my head upon hearing the horrible news was: “Why?” Now, I don’t have the authority to be asking this question, and it really is none of my business anyway, but I think it is important to take that question and apply it to suicide victims as a whole, because it is my firm belief that we don’t talk about suicide enough.  The word has a dramatic taboo in our society, and that’s where, I think, we can start digging for answers to the age-old question. Why do people kill themselves?

New Zealand suicide statistics state that between June 2014 and May 2015, 569 New Zealanders committed suicide, up from 529 the previous year (stuff.co.nz). 40 more people felt life was not worth living than the year before, and that’s not counting those whose suicides weren’t recorded. stats.govt.nz explains that Kiwi males are 66% more likely to commit suicide than Kiwi females, and that Maori males are roughly 50% more likely to commit suicide than non-Maori females. save.org, an international website, did not surprise me when it told me that 90% of people who kill themselves also suffer from depression. I find the correlation of all these numbers very eye-opening; if we want to find out why people kill themselves, we should first look at which people kill themselves. It’s pretty much all there: more men than women, more Maori people than non-Maori people, and even the ‘why’ is partially accounted for: depression. The silent bandit. Why, then, are more males killing themselves? (And yes: I am not bringing anything new to the table here. This is an opinion piece, not a thesis.) I think it’s because we don’t let them. Emotional fragility and vulnerability are considered by our society to be inherently weak character traits, because mood and emotions are strongly associated with females, the sex accepted to be ‘weaker’ in patriarchal culture. Yet obviously, everyone feels emotions. Everyone gets sad sometimes, but do you know what else is deemed ‘effeminate’? Discussing how we feel. Working through our emotions. Confessing to our mental unwellness. Being human isn’t very masculine, so men and boys must act superhuman, or they will be shunned. It’s a sad and disgusting truth, but for the time being, we are stuck with it. What can a boy who’s mental health is slowly killing him do if he’ll be socially ridiculed for not being made of titanium? He’ll kill himself before the disease can get to him. He’ll take his own life because we won’t let him talk.

That is why I think it’s so incredibly important to discuss suicide, especially when tragedies like the one in my area strike. It is absolutely vital that we start normalising the conversation, especially for males and especially for Maori people. Books like Matt Haig’s Reasons to Stay Alive can help to get the ball rolling, but it’s up to us as communities and as individuals to implement the disassembly of the social taboos in the place that mean men feel cornered by depression and suicidal ideation, feel trapped within their sadness, feel as if suicide is the only option. Lives literally depend on us making this change; I now know this much myself. A family in my community has lost a child, a brother, another beating heart, and while I definitely don’t claim to know any of the details surrounding this particular case, I do know what we can be doing to help keep other hearts beating on.

To you, if you’re reading this because you need the help I’m so desperate to give you: I know. I know it’s hard. Ned Vizzini put it really well: it’s so hard to talk when you want to kill yourself. It’s so hard to speak up, and it’s so hard to go on when you’re afraid of every single day, every waking moment and every dream. It’s so hard to want to stay alive sometimes. Just hang in there, okay? Hold on for one more minute, one more hour, one more day. To quote Matt Haig: Life is always worth it.

WORKS CITED

• Haig, Matt. Reasons to Stay Alive. Edinburgh: Canongate Books, 2015.
• "Suicide and Depression Q&A." save.org. Accessed April 14, 2016. http://goo.gl/mx8LrL.
• "Suicide Toll Reaches Highest Rate since Records Kept." Stuff.co.nz. July 3, 2015. Accessed April 14, 2016. http://goo.gl/MJmMFO.
• "Suicide." stats.govt.nz. January 2016. Accessed April 14, 2016. http://goo.gl/M08Lc8.
• Vizzini, Ned. It's Kind of a Funny Story. New York: Hyperion, 2006.

WORLD SUICIDE HOTLINES MASTERPOST: http://goo.gl/HLslbD

• AUSTRIA 01-713-3374
• AUSTRALIA 1-800-817-569
• BRAZIL 21-233-9191
• CANADA  514-723-4000
• CHINA 852-2382-0000
• HOLLAND 0900-0767
• HUNGARY 62-420-111
• INDIA 91-22-307-3451
• ITALY 800-86-00-22 (ROMA)    199-284-284 (TRENTO)
• MALAYSIA 03-756-8144
• MEXICO 525-510-2550
• NEW ZEALAND 4-473-9739
• NORWAY 815-33-300
• DENMARK 70-201-201
• EGYPT 7621602
• FINLAND 040-5032199
• PORTUGAL 239-72-10-10
• REPUBLIC OF IRELAND 1850-60-90-90
• RUSSIA 8-20-222-82-10
• SINGAPORE  800-221-4444 OR 000-227-0309
• SOUTH AFRICA 0861-322-322
• SOUTH KOREA 2-715-8600
• SPAIN 91-459-00-50
• SRI VINCENT 1-692-909
• SWEDEN 031-711-2400
• SWITZERLAND 143
• THAILAND 02-249-9977
• TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO 868-645-2800
• UKRAINE 0487-327715 OR 0482-226565
• UNITED KINGDOM 08457-90-90-90
• UNITED STATES  1-800-SUICIDE (7842433) OR 1-800-TALK(8255) OR - 1-800-827-757