Editorial: All’s Not Well

There is nothing new in what follows, so if you are tired of comments on suicides in Sikkim, stop reading further and switch to some other story. However, if the continuing spate of suicides worries, stay with us.
A 15-year-old committing suicide should be an aberration. It should never happen, and if it does, it should be a rarity. Unfortunately, it is not so anymore for Sikkim. Too many teenagers are succumbing to suicide, a problem which grips all age groups and social strata and location in the State. Suicides are a worry, and even more so in the case of lives so young. The phenomenon is now so ingrained that it is not rare anymore to learn of more than one suicide in the same family. In the suicide of a teenager reported in today’s edition, it is disturbing to learn that the victim’s mother had also been lost to suicide some years back. It is obvious that depression is a common ailment among suicide victims, but what cannot escape notice is the fact that one does not even associate such problems as depression and stress with the teen years [at least not of an intensity that would lead to suicide]. Yet, a disturbing number of Sikkim’s young have taken their own lives. There might be even more who have survived a suicide attempt. While one can theorise endlessly on why the present day youth is so troubled, it is urgent to start caring for them. It is understood that the splitting of the joint-family system into its nuclear slivers has taken away the support system that acted as a salve for the fragility of younger years. This is not to state that the nuclear families don’t care for the child enough, but they could inadvertently lack the tenderness which a child needs. Urban pressures, peer pressures, hormonal pressures, academic pressure - these are only some of the tensions which one goes through growing up. Until newspapers started reporting incidents of suicides and the police started document such unnatural deaths more diligently, Sikkim lived in an idyll believing that this could not happen in the relaxed environs of the hill state. That idyll now stands shattered and it is for this reason that experts should start sensitising teachers and community groups on recognising and handling such psychiatric symptoms as stress, depression and trauma in school-going children. Since no concerted effort has yet been launched to address suicides, an initiative should now begin with cushions for the young.
While psychiatry might be an iffy science for most, it has been proven that if symptoms are recognised in time there is a cure for every psychiatric ailment. This comment does not even try to raise a red herring that every Sikkimese child is getting suicidal. All that is being attempted is to recognise the fact that the younger generation is growing in conditions much different from earlier times. They need special care and understanding. A new academic session will begin soon, and it would be advisable for the Health and Human Resource Development Departments to collaborate and put together a refresher course focussed on depression and suicides among the young for teachers. On our part, as teachers, parents and elders, we have to change our approach towards addressing juvenile issues. Why do people, especially such young people, commit suicide? Several thousand articles and books have been written about the cause and prevention of suicide, but the problem is not so simplistic as to lend itself to cut-and-paste solutions. Sikkim will have to engage more closely to identify the triggers, address them and save more lives, save younger lives. It also becomes everyone’s duty to recognise suicidal tendencies and address the issue and if need be seek professional help. Given the present times, changing the situations [triggering suicidal thoughts] is not always possible, but if we know the problem, then we can at least work on a solution. Sikkim, of course, will have to start feeling before it starts resolving...