Argumentative Essay: “Suicide does not mean there was no killer”
Every day. Every day, a hope dies somewhere, a heart refuses to beat, a goal is left underachieved, a wound wishes to be healed and a body fails to survive. Roxanne Macdonald said, “Most of the time, people who die by suicide don’t want to actually die. They just don’t want to be alive, and there is a huge difference.” This depicts the reality that no one desires to die. Who does? One simply gets tired of dying in episodes.
Suicide is defined as deliberately taking one’s own life and is deeply rooted in hopelessness. It is the second leading cause of death in the people of age 15 to 29 worldwide. Approximately 75% of the global suicides occur in low and middle income countries. The recently published World Health Organization report on suicide estimated that in 2012, suicide rate was 11.4 per 100,000 inhabitants worldwide and 7.5 per 100,000 in Pakistan. In 2014, the suicide rate increased to 9.1 per 100.000 among 15–29 year of age in Pakistan which was a drastic change. Pakistan has been struggling since 1947 and is suffering from severe economic crises since 1990. The major social issues of a state are always the major life issues of its youth. Unemployment, poverty, corruption, and economy crises; all are minimizing the successful ideation of a bright future or at least survival. Increase in the suicide affects population, literacy rate and mental health of the society.
Suicide rates are reaching new heights in youth of Pakistan because it is facing serious stressors related to academics, bullying and harassment and mental illness which is considered taboo to uncover.
Farid Ahmad, student of Agha Khan Higher Secondary School on obtaining 81 percent marks shot himself at his residence in Chitral over unsatisfactory result in the intermediate examinations 2018. Earlier, one boy and two girls had committed suicide in different villages of Chitral for the same reason. Academic pressure can be any factor that exceeds your mental or physical capability to study. It can even deteriorate your efficiency. Most of the academic pressures result from substandard education system in which unjust grading, lack of opportunities, preference of grades over skills, and culpable prestigious staff. This happens when sincerity to state is sold for few thousands. Resultantly, academic pressures open the doors of hopelessness and powerlessness. Academics become pressures when expectations are higher while support systems are weaker. There are multiple stressors that are strongly correlated with academic pressure, like expectations and criticism from parents and teachers. Students are treated like robots and puppets who are only allowed to say yes to the commandments. Youth is the age of innovations and recreations. It is the most energetic period of life, full of dreams and zeal to achieve the heights of success with pleasure. Twenty one year old Saboor, the student of chartered accountancy, allegedly shot himself at his residence in Karachi over failure to get desired results in an examination. Our concept of education is limited to securing best grades and it’s a fact. We strive to get good grades, so we can get good jobs, good salary, just to meet the basic needs of life. Struggles are all revolving around money. So people decide to end the root cause, life; maybe it is easier and cheaper. Today, the profession and career of a child is decided well before his birth. Imposition of selective degrees by parents and society is enough to destroy the self-efficacy of a child. Self-efficacy is one’s belief to achieve the task, which is inversely correlated to academic burnout, the feeling of exhaustion due to prolonged stress and hopelessness, which leads to suicidal ideation and suicide eventually.
Bullying is the coercive and repetitive use of power to dominate. It is the use of superior strength or influence to intimidate someone typically to force them to do something, while harassment covers a wide range of offensive behaviors. Repetition of harassment is known as bullying. Bullying done through technological means is known as cyber bullying. Unsuccessful interpersonal relations, on hand access to social media, anonymity and resentfulness are some causes of cyber-bullying that hurts the self-esteem of a person. Self-esteem refers to self-worth or personal value to determine how much one likes oneself Naila Rind, a student of Sindh University, Jamshoro, was found hanging from the ceiling fan of her hostel room, following exploitation and blackmail by the accused teacher. Bullying and suicide are so interlinked now, that “bullycide” is added in lexicon to define suicide by bullying. Hurting one’s self esteem can make one feel worthless. The fear of being judged and stigmatized hinders one to uncover the personal matters.
Similarly, mental illness is often left undiagnosed and therefore untreated in Pakistan. Life stressors and vulnerable personality veer one towards depression, with hopelessness as a predominant factor that leads to suicidal behavior. Lack of research on suicides is due to the criminalization of suicide in Pakistan. According to The Pakistan Penal Code 325, suicidal acts are considered the criminal acts, so the criminal shall be punished with fine and imprisonment. Under this law, suicidal cases tend to be taken to government hospitals designated as medico-legal centers. To avoid legal complications, people tend to seek private hospitals who help people and mislabel their suicidal act as accidental and are expensive as well. Due to financial, legal, religious and socio-cultural stigma surrounding suicidal behavior, the underlying psychological disorders remain unaddressed. People do not seek help with the fear of prosecution or harassment by law. Sadly, for certain reasons, society has also made it difficult for the sufferers to be vocal about their mental illness. People fear of being called lunatic by society. The most common mental health problems were found either to be major depressive disorders or harmful use of psycho active substances which lead to the thoughts of self-harm, irritability and low self-esteem. Domestic violence, sexual abuse, loss of beloved ones are the factors that contribute in mental illness. According to the estimation of WHO, for every suicide there are almost ten to twenty acts of deliberate self-harm. Considering this estimation, Professor Murad Moosa Khan, the first Asian as well as first Pakistani president of the International Association for Suicide Prevention, said, around 130,000 to 300,000 people are at risk of making suicide attempts and about 13,000 to 15,000 people commit suicide annually.
The irrepressible increase in the suicide rate of Pakistan is put up by number of killers. The debate revolves around educational, economic and social aspects of Pakistan. Major crises of Pakistan are affecting the psychological health of youth. Weak supporting systems are generating academic pressures which destroy one’s self-efficacy followed by suicidal ideation. Cyber-bullying is a silent killer. Mental illness is considered a taboo subject that needs to be hidden. All these factors are the killers, no one ever lacks a good reason for suicide.
