DEPRESSION AND SUICIDES: APPROACHING THE PROBLEM FROM THE WRONG END

For the last two days, it has been fascinating to see the erstwhile temporary experts on Corona, Economy, Indo-China geopolitics suddenly become Mental Health Experts after the news of Sushant Singh Rajput’s suicide came in. Thousands of messages have flooded the timeline of FB, LinkedIn etc. urging people to “Talk it out with a close friend/family member”, “Ping me directly if you ever feel like ending your life” and what not. My request to such experts is to PLEASE STOP with the sanctimonious preaching and take a cold hard look at your own self.

Majority of our society considers depression as a ghost: it does not exist, it is a figment of our imagination, stop thinking about it and it will go away. It is like telling a patient with cough to stop coughing and it will go away.

Stress, Depression and Anger, which eventually lead to a suicide does not get built inside a person in a day. It takes months and years to manifest and many small incidents/behaviors contribute to building up this time bomb. A person committing suicide is only triggering the detonation.

Is talking before taking the final step the correct approach? Aren’t we approaching the problem from the wrong end?

Why let a person reach the detonation point in the first place? Can we change our behavior just a little to ensure we are not contributing to the stress, anger, and depression amongst our stakeholders? A little introspection of our own daily behavior can show how we push people towards it

• Every recruiter/ interviewer who says, “I will get back to you” and does not, adds to the frustration and depression of a person who is looking for a job
• Every person who pushes a job seeker after a break/maternity to accept a lesser salary (because it helps you get a 5.1% increment than a 5% one) pushes someone a bit towards the detonator
• Biased bosses and people in higher echelons who ensure all the good opportunities/promotions/recognitions go only to their favorites in their team push everyone else one step further to depression and helplessness. Sounds familiar? Apparently, this was a major reason for Sushant taking the step
• Family and friends who promise to help/ hear out but get too busy always cannot escape their responsibility either. People who take help and support but go missing when it is their turn to return the favor are equally culpable
• Harassment in families- mental, physical, or emotional. False cases, concocted stories etc. to get the sadist kick out of troubling others adds on to the pile
• Telling people around “You’re not earning enough”, “you’re not successful enough” or “You’re not as good as sibling/cousin/neighbor” without providing any support, help or enabling them to reach there is meaningless and adds to the pressure. Likewise, for commenting on physical attributes
• Irrational understanding of what success and happiness is and trying to superimpose your views of those on others. “You should have bought a bungalow or a luxury car by now”, “you should have been married or have had kids by now” etc. – Do we have any idea how much of a negative impact these comparative expectations have on an individual? People start lying and keep posting those lies on social media etc. to gain acceptance from the society just to show how successful and happy they are, while they are miserable deep inside
• Check your phone/ FB/LinkedIn etc. inboxes. How many unread messages do you have? How many messages have you read but not responded to? How many conversations never happened because you chose to respond with Hmmm or K? Someone might have wanted to talk to you, but you killed the conversation before it even started. Did you even provide others with an environment for them to talk with you? And now your timeline is swamped with “Talk to me” and “Share with me”.

There are countless such things we do daily without thinking about its impact on someone else. Right now, it happened with a celebrity, so we are stunned. But we know the reality that it happens in every industry, in every family and in every group. Sooner or later, it will pile up for someone who is an important stakeholder for us.

The only long-lasting and effective solution to avoid more Sushant Singh Rajputs is to change our behavior to being more humane, kind, and attentive to our stakeholders. Not so that they will want to talk to us before committing suicide and we can get them to change their mind; but because they should never reach the levels of stress and depression to think about going for the detonation switch in the first place