Addressing Suicide With Compassion - Mental Health 6/7
As-salamu alaykum. Berak Hussain here, the Muslim counselor. Suicide. Why am I saying it? Why am I even bringing this up? We are not supposed to be talking about this within our communities. The reality is it is happening. So many young people, including elders, are resorting to taking their lives and self-harmed because they can't cope and deal with the issues that are happening around us. Who are the most vulnerable? Why is it something that we don't talk about? Why does this happen? And what can we do to help people who are struggling with feelings of hopelessness and depression who eventually do start taking their lives? What are the thing that we need to be aware of?
Well, a lot of clients that I deal with who come into my office, and who talk about self-harming, who talk about having thoughts of suicidality, has to do with the fact that they feel hopeless. They feel there is nothing to live for in their lives. They have lost hope, whether it is in their family, in friends, in work. They don't have a direction or a goal. This, by the way, is also inclusive of Muslim clients. This doesn't necessarily mean that this person doesn't have faith or they are not religious. It just means that they are going through a struggle in their lives.
We are quick to judge. We are quick to point fingers and say to somebody, You don't have faith. You lost faith, you need to strengthen your relationship with Allah, you need to read the Qur'an, read Du'a, that will make you feel better. We know, research has shown that, yes, spirituality and religion does have a positive impact on our overall well-being. But when somebody comes to you with a broken leg, you don't tell them, Go read ayahs from the Qur'an. You try to fix that broken leg. You try to support them until they come back to their full functioning. The same thing, when somebody is dealing with depression that could potentially lead to suicidal thoughts, can lead to wanting to take their lives. So what can we do?
Well, let's first understand why a person gets to that point. As we were describing, somebody who doesn't feel that they have much to live for. Perhaps they don't have a direction in life in terms of what they want to do with their schoolwork, what they want to do in their career. They are not as excited or motivated about that. Something tragic could have befallen this person, and they don't know how to cope and deal with the tragedy or the difficulty at hand. So they feel overwhelmed. They feel they don't have the coping strategies and the skills to deal with it. They feel there is no point.
Now, some clients that I work with, I would ask them, what holds you back? Or would you actually do this? The answer would be, no, even though I have these thoughts, I wouldn't actually do it because, first of all, my religion says it is haram. I should not be doing this. Second, most people will say, I don't want to hurt my family and my friends. I could not do that to them. It is too much. It is selfish. So even in the throes of depths of depression and hopelessness, a lot of people dealing with suicidal thoughts will have the awareness and the consciousness that this will inflict pain upon others. So I work with that. There is hope.
If you don't want to inflict pain on somebody by taking your life, there is still hope within you. There are still some things that you care about. So I work with that. Build on that. The person eventually gets to the point, or he will make a promise that they are not going to harm themselves while we work together to get to the point where they can feel a little bit better again.
What can we do to prevent suicide within our communities? We will not be able to 100% eradicate this. However, there comes a responsibility where we can work on that. This means creating a culture of openness when it comes to talking about mental illnesses, especially when it comes to depression and anxiety, especially when it comes to bullying, when it comes to abuse. Because all of these issues and illnesses are a huge factor that can impact people to feeling hopeless and helpless, which enables them to think about taking their lives.
If we can create a culture of compassion, if somebody comes to you and they are telling you they are not feeling well, they are low, and you are noticing that your friends or family members or your coworkers are not at their full potential like they used to be, ask, how are you? How are you doing? And not just face value, but really getting into it, and having a conversation, caring and opening up your heart and getting the other person to open up to you. And if you find that this person is really struggling, encourage them to go talk to a professional, go talk to somebody that they trust within the community, but not to let them feel isolated and alone. Because when they are alone, they are alone with their negative thoughts. They are alone alone and feeling hopeless, and they feel the only thing that they can do at this point is to take their lives.
It is our responsibility to create that culture of love and openness and acceptance that we are going to be struggling with this at some point in our lives. We all had thoughts of not wanting to live, when things get really difficult and tough. We have this life given to us, to do the best that we can to reach our full potential, help other people, help ourselves. Let's try and prevent people from getting to the point of wanting to take their lives when we have so much love and support that we can give to each other. As-salamu alaykum.
