Editorial

Suicide is Never the Answer, Getting Help Is
There is nothing original in the headline that marks this piece. In fact, this is not even the first time that this newspaper is reiterating this slogan used by most of the social organisations working to save lives from self-harm. And yet it is posted here, again, because not enough people seem to be getting the message in Sikkim. Every news about suicide is disturbing, but even the most inured of psyches would be disturbed when word arrives that a class VI student at a rural school in Sikkim committed suicide by hanging herself in her room even as the rest of the family was still at home, occupied with regular chores.
This is how the New Year began for a family in South Sikkim, and a teenager became the first casualty to a social challenge that continues to grow larger not because the Sikkimese are more inclined towards ending their own lives but more so because nothing is even being attempted to address the issue. If even the distressing morbidity of a teenager locking herself in her room even as everyone was at home and awake [it was barely 7 p.m. at the time], and then proceeding to hang herself using a dupatta does not rattle the society to wake up and address the situation, then probably nothing will. As things stand, nothing is happening, and fuelled by the societal ennui born from everyone preferring to blindside the problem, Sikkim has marched on to become the Suicide Capital of the country. As per latest statistics, with a suicide rate of 48.2 per lakh of population, Sikkim has the highest suicide rate in the country. The country on the whole has a suicide rate of 10.8. Sikkim’s condition is obviously worrying.
Returning to the theme, it is not enough to accept that suicide is not the answer because that automatically requires one to address the need to make help accessible. For that to happen, people on the brink and those around them need to know whom to approach for Help. Even if the infrastructure is highly insufficient to meet the amount of SOS calls individual situations are ringing out in Sikkim, the first step has to be to sensitise people about where to go when they notice suicidal tendencies in themselves or those around them. Hopefully, with the demand, the infrastructure will also be forced to increase and improve. Sikkim has not even taken the first step yet. There was talk of opening a suicide helpline sometime back, but this project is obviously handicapped by the lack of trained counsellors to attend to the distress calls. But it has been a while since this plan was mooted, and surely, even if trained human resource was not available at that time, an army of counsellors could have been trained by now. Even though there is no data to support any speculations to explain the high suicide rate in Sikkim, it would be safe to agree that suicides rarely occur out of the blue. Enough warning signs are let out, perhaps even failed bids. Counselling and medical attention should come automatically for such cases. This obviously rarely happens.
Given the ignorance that the society here feigns on its role towards containing suicides, let this one be littered with clichés. “Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem”. Few statements are truer than this, because the problems facing suicidal situations, whether they are situational or medical, are temporary. Compassionate counselling and proper medication can resolve these situations, but that requires societal involvement, not just to inform more people about the temporariness of the situation, but also about the access to medical help. Societal involvement is also necessary to end the stigma that the society still attaches to psychiatric conditions. This inhibits victims and their families from approaching a psychiatrist even when they know that a visit is necessary. It is not rare for families to reject such notions because at a subconscious level they are worried about the ‘scandal’ that such a visit could trigger in the circles they move in. The hesitance proves fatal in many cases. What is worse, the ‘shame’ of a suicide ends up with families covering up the cause of death, which denies the survivors [the family left behind and even failed suicide attempt victims] from receiving counselling that could save more among them from taking recourse to suicide. It is a messy situation, and definitely one that is made worse more by societal indifference than the lack of adequate medical infrastructure.