It’s tragic to lose God-given lives to suicide
it be heartbreaking to know that one word, or an action, could have stopped someone from taking his life?
Suicide awareness has been rising over the past decade.
However, while many sympathise with mental health victims, they also seem to regard suicide as other-worldly, like car accidents in a foreign country.
I, for one, was beyond being shocked when a student from a university next to my school in Kuala Lumpur killed himself in June.
That was when a matter that seemed like a story became reality, a tangible problem. What seemed like mere statistics became precious lives lost.
The suicide rate of all age groups in Malaysia has been rising since 1996, and one in every 10 people aged 16 and above has problems with mental health, said Befrienders KL.
But we know little about mental health. We don’t know the signs of impaired mental health, we don’t know the dos and don’ts of the treatment of mental health patients, and we don’t know what causes mental health problems.
We have to learn how to read the signs and help before it becomes too late.
To raise awareness and reach out to people about mental health, my peers and I in the Leo Club of Sri Kuala Lumpur are organising Forte Music Festival at Dewan MPSJ in SS15, Subang Jaya, Selangor, on Aug 25 from 11am to 6pm. There will be talks on mental health as well as booths to discuss and share thoughts about mental health.
Through the event, we hope that people will realise the immediacy of this subject and also raise funds for Befrienders, a non-profit organisation that supports and treats mental health, primarily through phone calls, face-to-face conversations and emails.
It is just too tragic to lose any God-given life, and it is our responsibility to help.