Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Sui­ci­dal be­hav­iour is wors­en­ing in T&T.What would cause a nine-year-old child to stab him­self in the ab­domen? He has fam­i­ly prob­lems, feels unloved and can't live with the par­ent he wants.Why would a teenage girl want to cut her wrist and see her blood flow? Her pain dis­ap­pears.Self-harm in chil­dren and teenagers is a grow­ing glob­al trend.And while com­plet­ed sui­cide is on the de­cline, more peo­ple and chil­dren are now at­tempt­ing sui­cide.

A 13-year-old school girl in San Fer­nan­do said cut­ting her wrists helped her to over­come pain that she can­not de­scribe."I get im­me­di­ate re­lief when I see blood. All the hurt and pain I feel just leaves and then I'm fine," she said.A woman in­se­cure of sex­u­al­i­ty tried twice to kill her­self. Some peo­ple re­act to a break up, loss of a job, loss of a home, or fi­nan­cial prob­lems.

"It's re­al­ly iden­ti­fy­ing cause," says Head of the De­part­ment of Clin­i­cal Med­ical Sci­ences, Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) and head of pyschi­atric ser­vices in the North-Cen­tral Re­gion­al Au­thor­i­ty Prof Ger­ard Hutchin­son.For over 20 years he's been a prac­ti­tion­er in the field of pyschi­a­try.

He said, "It's then about de­vis­ing a treat­ment process that is re­lat­ed to cause. So in terms of de­gree of sever­i­ty, there are peo­ple who re­act to dif­fer­ent life chal­lenges so we of­fer coun­selling about be­ing able to cope with ad­ver­si­ty and pro­vid­ed sup­port."But then there are peo­ple with un­der­ly­ing ill­ness­es like de­pres­sion, anx­i­ety dis­or­der, bi-po­lar dis­or­der and per­son­al­i­ty dis­or­der."They re­quire spe­cif­ic treat­ment."

Hutchin­son spoke with the Sun­day Guardian at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex.

Chil­dren are now more ex­posed

Since he's been work­ing in this field, Hutchin­son said com­plet­ed sui­cide has im­proved be­cause more men­tal health work­ers were be­ing trained."More peo­ple are able to ac­cess help."I think that sui­ci­dal be­hav­iour is wors­en­ing, com­plet­ed sui­cide is de­clin­ing but more peo­ple and lit­tle chil­dren are at­tempt­ing.What's the rea­son be­hind the rise among chil­dren?He said they were grow­ing up faster and were now more ex­posed to a lot more things that pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions were pre­pared to ac­cept that they won't.

"Be­cause of the In­ter­net and so­cial me­dia they can share things in a way pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions couldn't and in that way they are re­defin­ing norms and be­hav­iours that are re­spons­es to the chal­lenges they face and one of them is sui­ci­dal be­hav­iour."He said there was a nine-year-old boy who had stabbed him­self in the ab­domen be­cause of fam­i­ly is­sues.

Hutchin­son said, "In essence, he wasn't sat­is­fied with the par­ent he was liv­ing with and want­ed to live with the oth­er par­ent be­cause they had split...whichev­er house he was in he felt he was not be­ing treat­ed fair­ly and just­ly and the house he want­ed to be in couldn't ac­com­mo­date him at that time so that's what he did."Peo­ple who were mad can be­come well and peo­ple who are well can be­come mad.

If put un­der enough stress and sup­port sys­tems col­lapse around them, every­body can be­come mad, said Hutchin­son."Every­one has the po­ten­tial to be crazy. It is not about I am well and he is mad."Every­body can be­come mad if they're put un­der enough stress, if their sup­ports col­lapse around them, if they de­vel­op some se­ri­ous prob­lem they have no an­swer for...they can be­come mad."He said it was not a state of per­ma­nence and that sim­i­lar­ly "peo­ple who be­come mad can al­so be­come well."

"It's not like I am al­ways mad and I am al­ways well."Peo­ple have to be sen­si­tive to signs that oth­ers are de­com­pen­sat­ing in some way and not do­ing things they nor­mal­ly do like be­hav­ing a lit­tle strange, un­usu­al­ly qui­et, talk­ing about sui­cide, los­ing weight for no good rea­son and demon­strat­ing changes in their be­hav­iour that oth­er peo­ple who know them can iden­ti­fy.

Hutchin­son said the next step was to en­cour­age them to seek help."Let them know they should talk or see some­one. Go with them. "Co-work­ers bring their col­leagues be­cause they usu­al­ly want sup­port and don't want to come alone."He said many times peo­ple who go through psy­chi­atric prob­lems don't even ac­knowl­edge with­in them­selves the sever­i­ty of those prob­lems.He said they think they are cop­ing but it is the peo­ple around them who no­tice changes-that they are not leav­ing their desks or not eat­ing.

"The thing is to en­gage them so they can seek help," Hutchin­son said.

�2 Con­tact Curepe Life­line for as­sis­tance 645-2800.

How to help some­one

�2Lis­ten;

�2be sup­port­ive, not dis­mis­sive;

�2con­nect per­son with a cri­sis cen­tre or clin­i­cian;

�2know your re­sources-hot­lines, doc­tors, coun­selling;

�2get sup­port-don't do it alone.