May peace now hold you,

soft and deep,

Be­yond the reach of hurt

or fear.

We’ll keep your light,

we’ll speak your name,

And love you more

with every year.

Rest easy, Ko­bie,

bright and kind,

Your gen­tle soul walks

by our side.

A few weeks ago, while I was across the world, I re­ceived a mes­sage that one of my for­mer stu­dents had died by sui­cide. He was a stu­dent I ad­mired deeply. Not be­cause he worked con­sis­tent­ly and dili­gent­ly to get a grade A in my course, but be­cause for an en­tire year, I in­ter­act­ed with him out­side of the class­room. He worked as a life­guard at a pool where I swam reg­u­lar­ly.

Every sin­gle time I saw him, he was al­ways very pos­i­tive, friend­ly, and ra­di­at­ed warmth, even on days when I knew his em­ploy­ers had an­noyed him or treat­ed him bad­ly. The man­ner in which he died was shock­ing and deeply sad­den­ing, es­pe­cial­ly be­cause he al­ways seemed cheer­ful and full of life.

Ac­cord­ing to the Glob­al Men­tal Health Ac­tion Net­work, “Sui­cide is the sec­ond lead­ing cause of death amongst Caribbean youth be­tween the ages of 15 and 25. In 2017, al­most one in sev­en ado­les­cent stu­dents in Trinidad and To­ba­go had at­tempt­ed sui­cide. In the rest of the pop­u­la­tion, the rate of sui­cide at­tempts in the Caribbean has been steadi­ly in­creas­ing.” About three years ago, Dr Var­ma Deyals­ingh not­ed that sui­cide was the sec­ond-high­est cause of death in chil­dren aged 15 to 29.

The sta­tis­tics are es­pe­cial­ly high for males. The Min­istry of Health and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) stat­ed that be­tween 2020 and 2021, T&T record­ed 320 sui­cides, with men ac­count­ing for 80 per cent of the deaths. In 2022, it was high­er for males, as out of 142 sui­cides, 123 were males (87 per cent). In 2023, al­though the to­tal num­ber of sui­cides dropped to 104, 81 of the de­ceased were men (78 per cent).

While the to­tal num­ber of sui­cides for 2024 has not been re­leased, fig­ures from pre­vi­ous years al­ready point to a se­ri­ous pub­lic health cri­sis in T&T, with men ac­count­ing for four out of every five lives lost to sui­cide.

So, what are we miss­ing? What could have dri­ven a young man who filled spaces with laugh­ter and sun­shine to feel that death was his on­ly op­tion? How sad it is that one of our bright­est youths did not feel like he could speak to any­one about his strug­gles, and that no one knew he need­ed help? Why is the sui­cide rate com­par­a­tive­ly high­er for our men in T&T? And most im­por­tant­ly, how do we change this?

First, we need to get rid of the taboo around men­tal health is­sues. Here in T&T, we make jokes about men­tal health. Imag­ine we laugh and say “Yuh mad” or “Yuh crazy”. We tell peo­ple to tough­en up or to pray more or be grate­ful. We don’t dis­cuss men­tal health in schools, work­places or fam­i­lies. Our re­li­gious sup­port sys­tems think that prayers are the so­lu­tions to all the prob­lems in the world.

We on­ly fo­cus on men­tal health when we cel­e­brate Men­tal Health Aware­ness Month in Oc­to­ber. Even worse, we don’t dis­cuss sui­cide. The gen­er­al per­spec­tive is that some­one who dies by sui­cide is weak and doesn’t de­serve to have life if he/she did not val­ue life, and the most com­mon is “some­thing wrong with dem”.

Sec­ond­ly, men­tal health lit­er­a­cy needs to be em­bed­ded in our schools, com­mu­ni­ty and re­li­gious groups. It must be an im­por­tant part of ed­u­ca­tion and so­cial­i­sa­tion. Check­ing in with friends and speak­ing about emo­tions and how to cope with neg­a­tive feel­ings should be­come a reg­u­lar part of our so­cial­i­sa­tion. We have this thing in T&T where men don’t talk about their feel­ings, where they are ridiculed and la­belled as ef­fem­i­nate and gay, and are called emo­tion­al and soft, amongst oth­er things. This at­ti­tude is not help­ing us.

Third­ly, we need to nor­malise ask­ing for help. Re­search has shown that men are less like­ly to seek help be­cause of stig­ma, so­cial ex­pec­ta­tions, and the cul­tur­al no­tion that “re­al men don’t cry”. We need na­tion­wide cam­paigns that re­de­fine mas­culin­i­ty so that seek­ing help is seen as a strength, not as a weak­ness. We need to train coach­es, teach­ers, re­li­gious and com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers to recog­nise warn­ing signs and to of­fer coun­selling ser­vices free of charge. The cost of ther­a­py is too ex­pen­sive in T&T. Coun­selling ser­vices need to be avail­able and ac­ces­si­ble through­out the coun­try through clin­ics, mo­bile units, and hot­lines.

The founder of In­ter­na­tion­al Men’s Day, Dr Jerome Teelucks­ingh, re­minds us, “We need to teach our boys and men prop­er cop­ing mech­a­nisms, such as be­ing less com­pet­i­tive and deal­ing with stress­ful sit­u­a­tions and peo­ple. Males can help one an­oth­er by be­ing ‘our broth­er’s keep­er’. We need to un­learn harm­ful be­hav­iours, re-ed­u­cate, and elim­i­nate out­dat­ed at­ti­tudes. Men must have a sup­port­ive broth­er­hood cir­cle that keeps in reg­u­lar con­tact and of­fers sup­port dur­ing times of cri­sis or need.”

Per­haps the great­est tragedy of sui­cide is not on­ly the life that ends but al­so the si­lence that re­mains. My stu­dent’s death is a painful re­minder that be­hind every bright smile, there may be pri­vate strug­gles we nev­er see.

We must de­cide as a na­tion that men­tal health is not a lux­u­ry or an af­ter­thought, and we need to look out for each oth­er. Let us build a cul­ture where men can cry with­out shame, where boys learn that strength is found in seek­ing help, and where every per­son feels seen, heard, and val­ued.