Maria O’Brien

Di­rec­tor, Mind­wise Project

Most peo­ple don’t even think about sui­cide un­til it turns their world up­side down. How­ev­er, our re­al­i­ty is that sui­cide is shock­ing­ly com­mon.

More peo­ple in our world die by sui­cide, than war and homi­cide, HIV, Malar­ia and Breast Can­cer. The World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion es­ti­mates that in 2019 over 700,000 peo­ple died by sui­cide, which is one in 100 deaths, or one death by sui­cide every 40 sec­onds.

Oc­to­ber 10 marks World Men­tal Health Day, but its sig­nif­i­cance car­ries through­out the year as sui­cide is a ma­jor health prob­lem here in our twin is­land home, where we have the third high­est sui­cide rate in the Caribbean, with one per­son dy­ing by sui­cide every 3.5 days, or two per­sons per week in 2020, a rate that holds pret­ty steady for the past decade ac­cord­ing to sta­tis­tics pro­vid­ed by Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.

Mind­wise Project, a lo­cal men­tal health non­prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion, has been com­mit­ted to shar­ing our lo­cal sto­ry of sui­cide to help bring the is­sue home for Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Not­ing that sui­cides in Trinidad and To­ba­go might al­so be un­der re­port­ed, the pos­si­bil­i­ty that these num­bers might be even high­er should bring us great con­cern.

Sound­ing the alarm for men and boys

As we look at the num­bers com­ing out of the pan­dem­ic in 2021, we must sound the alarm for young boys and men, with the youngest life lost to sui­cide this year be­ing a nine-year-old boy. Eighty-nine per­cent of the sui­ci­dal deaths as of Sep­tem­ber this year were boys and men, with 77 male lives lost. In 2020, 80% of 104 sui­ci­dal deaths were boys and men, with a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of those be­ing men over the age of 60 years.

Dr Mar­garet Nakhid-Cha­toor, Past Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go As­so­ci­a­tion of Psy­chol­o­gists (TTAP), had this to share with us: “Since the start of the pan­dem­ic, there has been a steady in­crease in the num­ber of boys and men who end their own lives pre­ma­ture­ly. Men are far more like­ly to die by sui­cide, as high as four times the rate of women…the most com­mon anx­i­eties that are of cause for con­cern in­clude stress­ful life events such as school stress, fam­i­ly prob­lems, re­la­tion­ship is­sues and fi­nan­cial debts.” She states, “We must shift the cul­tur­al par­a­digm of si­lence and make it eas­i­er for boys and men to talk about how they are feel­ing.”

Our lo­cal sta­tis­tics al­so re­veal a con­tin­u­ing trend of sui­cides tak­ing place amongst the ado­les­cent and un­der 15 de­mo­graph­ic in the last few years. Dr Nakhid-Cha­toor, shared fur­ther in­sights in­to the men­tal health ex­pe­ri­ence of ado­les­cents in the pan­dem­ic. “Iso­la­tion, bore­dom and lone­li­ness has in­creased men­tal ill­ness for teenagers with pre-ex­ist­ing men­tal health dis­or­ders. While tech­nol­o­gy has opened up links for them to read­i­ly ac­cess in­for­ma­tion, there are sig­nif­i­cant men­tal health risks as­so­ci­at­ed with its in­creased us­age. The ef­fects of tech­nol­o­gy on chil­dren and teens can al­so im­pact their so­cial skills, in­crease iso­la­tion and lone­li­ness and de­crease their de­vel­op­men­tal and cog­ni­tive lev­els of func­tion­ing.”

There is hope. Sui­cide is pre­ventable

Ac­cord­ing to the WHO, the foun­da­tion of pre­ven­tion is to un­der­stand what puts a per­son at risk. Some risk fac­tors worth not­ing for pre­ven­tion are pri­or sui­cide at­tempts; sub­stance or al­co­hol abuse; de­pres­sion and mood dis­or­ders; so­cial iso­la­tion; chron­ic dis­ease or dis­abil­i­ty; and lack of ac­cess to be­hav­iour­al health care. In­her­it­ed trau­ma, stress from vi­o­lence or bul­ly­ing, and oth­er fac­tors such as the end of a re­la­tion­ship, death of loved one or par­ent, an ar­rest or fi­nan­cial prob­lems can in­crease that risk.

COVID-19 has test­ed our emo­tion­al grap­pling as adults, but it has al­so af­fect­ed our chil­dren dras­ti­cal­ly. Par­ents may not be fa­mil­iar with how to help their chil­dren man­age, if they them­selves are hav­ing a dif­fi­cult time ad­just­ing and cop­ing to the new re­al­i­ty which COVID-19 presents.

Anx­i­ety wors­ens in chil­dren as they may not al­ways com­mu­ni­cate their wor­ry or fears di­rect­ly to their par­ents. It is well doc­u­ment­ed that par­ents miss the symp­toms when they them­selves are en­veloped in their dai­ly strug­gles and are not open-mind­ed to no­tice short-term be­hav­iour­al changes. These symp­toms such as ir­ri­tabil­i­ty, mood swings, act­ing out, changes in sleep pat­terns, or bed­wet­ting, can be per­ti­nent hints of a “stressed out child”. Oth­ers have trou­ble com­plet­ing as­sign­ments or con­cen­trat­ing on ex­ams. Some chil­dren have phys­i­cal ef­fects, in­clud­ing stom­ach aches, headaches, asth­mat­ic events, skin al­ler­gies, alope­cia or dis­rup­tions in their men­stru­al cy­cles.

Many anx­ious chil­dren keep their wor­ries to them­selves and thus, the symp­toms are missed or de­te­ri­o­rates in­to de­pres­sion.

Learn the warn­ing signs

Ed­u­cate your­self on the warn­ing signs of sui­cide to sup­port those clos­est to you. These can in­clude feel­ing help­less or a bur­den to oth­ers, in­creased drug use, changes in mood and sleep­ing habits, say­ing good­bye and giv­ing away pos­ses­sions.

Things you can do to sup­port some­one who may be con­tem­plat­ing sui­cide:

●Ask – Don’t be afraid to ask if some­one may be think­ing about sui­cide. Check-in with friends, fam­i­ly and co-work­ers. Ask if you may be wor­ried.

●Lis­ten – Be pa­tient and non-judg­men­tal when per­sons share thoughts and feel­ings about their pain.

●Sup­port – En­cour­age per­sons to seek help be­fore they ex­pe­ri­ence cri­sis. Ask how you can sup­port them dur­ing their dif­fi­cult time.

For lo­cal emer­gency and cri­sis sup­port:

Life­line : 800-5588/ 866-5433 TOLL FREE, 220-3636

Free Cri­sis and Emer­gency Ser­vices - www.Find­carett.com