Why do people commit suicide? How can someone just decide they want to take their own life ? how can they find the courage to do so? Regardless of how someone decides to commit suicide; whether it’s taking pills, hanging, cutting, jumping off of a high edge, shooting.. it just all goes down to the same conclusion:

“Suicide” on one hand, and “death”.

I’ve been reading  A LOT of articles concerning this issue. With each article I read, a little corner of this gets brighter, while another darkens up leaving me with unanswered question.

I guess I’m still trying to figure out why did my friend do it, and why do others do it?

To my surprise, I’ve found that every 40 seconds, a person commits suicide somewhere in the world, and generally speaking committing suicide is about three times more common in men than in women.

Suicide is common in Lebanon, although it’s not considered as one with a high suicidal rate, such as Sri Lanka , south Korea, Poland and Lithuania , however, every 3 days or so, one person commits suicide in Lebanon, and at least one in three persons might suffer from suicidal thoughts.

That scares me.

Suicide has long been and is still considered a taboo subject, something that is forbidden to talk about. I mean, talking about suicide is somehow close to talking about rape. It’s taboo.

Well nope. It’s not. It’s not like if we don’t talk about it, it’ll slowly fade away or cease to exist.

That’s not how the world works.

I wish though.

Some people consider suicide as an act of cowardice. Well, I think not. Suicide is a drastic solution to the problem of life itself, as well as too many other specific life problems. People who actually have suicidal thoughts or commit suicide, are wanting not so much to die, as to stop living. There’s a difference.

They’re crying out for help, searching for a shoulder to cry on maybe, or a friend.  And they just don’t know how else to get it.
These people don’t usually want to die but do want to alert those around them that something is seriously wrong.

Even if one is depressed, or sad, or just unhappy with their current situation or is even suffering from a problem to which they can’t find a solution on their own… we just try to offer emotional support, we get too scared about bringing up suicide, cause we worry that bringing up the subject of suicide will give ideas to an individual who is already depressed, but on the contrary, showing your concern lets a person in distress know that somebody is listening to them.

And as person who’s been through this, who has suffered the loss of a friend due to suicide; The one question I just keep on asking, the one that everyone asks  without exception, that they ache to have answered, is simply: why?

Why did that person do that? Why?
Even when a suicide note is left, we just can’t seem to understand why. That person may explain the reason, but we just can’t possibly stop thinking about how/why did they even start experiencing this?

The wounds suicide leaves in the lives of those left behind by it are often deep and long lasting, I know that now.

And even though the world is trying hard to put an end to this issue, and the suicidal rate in the world may have decreased in the last decade or so, but it’s still not enough.

We just can’t leave it to the corporations and foundations to find solutions, we, as individuals must take the initiative.

We should be more aware, we should give credit to suicide hotlines, spread awareness, just DO SOMETHING. Cause if we don’t who will?

Here’s a list of suicide prevention helplines;

Lebanon : 1564 “Embrace”

USA: 1-800-273-8255 “lifeline”

Australia : 1300 22 4636 “Beyond blue”

911 and 112 are the most used emergency lines in most countries.

Please, share this.

Help us make a difference