Breathe
By Linda Atach
It goes to my friend Faryde and to Sacnicté and his eternal rest.
Suicide can only be prevented or regretted, let us do the former so that survivors do not have to do the latter.
Andoni Ansean, President of the Spanish Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
Aimée took her own life last week, Ramiro two weeks ago and it is possible that Lorenzo, Ana and Gabriel will do so next month, plunging their loved ones into a perennial sadness and an emptiness as uncomfortable as it is difficult to explain. Those who survive people who decide to take their own lives continue theirs with a wounded soul and a guilt that questions and tortures them: "I never thought she was so bad", "she looked happy", "surely we could have done something for him", "why didn't I realize? Why didn't I take more care of her?" "I am a bad mother", "I was the worst brother", "it hurts me to have been an absent father", "we were selfish".
In the world, more than 700,000 people commit suicide every year. The data is strong and although it should be an urgent call to address the causes and prevent this phenomenon, we are still far from understanding that suicide has a natural relationship with mental illness, childhood traumas carried into adulthood and of course, the behaviors that arise from these and that complicate relationships and existence to the extent that people need to put an end to them to stop suffering.
Misunderstanding fosters demonization and concealment. In the case of suicide, this is compounded by the damage of collective imaginaries and beliefs of the divine concession of life and death, notions of what is right and the promotion of stoicism and its infamous idea of going along and enduring everything: there are difficult burdens to carry, such as that of a young person who does not find enough support to manifest his sexuality, the parent unable to cope with his economic responsibilities, the refugee who does not find a place in the world, or the young girl abused in childhood who sees no way out of the emotional pains and physical ravages that prevent her from flowing in a relationship.
What happens in Mexico is revealing: every year 6 out of every 100,000 people take their own lives, which places suicide as the second leading cause of death in the population between 15 and 29 years of age. The pandemic did not help; in 2020 alone, 7,896 suicides and 3,665 attempts were reported, with an increase of almost 1,000 in 2021. In addition to affirming with these data that the trend is on the rise, it is worth emphasizing that the suicide rate in women has quadrupled in the last 20 years. Something serious must be happening in the social and emotional fabric of our country.
A good friend confided to me that the suicide of her 20-year-old sister became a turning point in her life, and that, in addition to the relentless questioning of what could have been and was not -from which she rarely frees herself-, she survives dedicated to the task of transforming herself and building her hope on a daily basis. I know she does it to avoid sinking in the sorrow that always lurks, but also to help others and to prevent other families from going through the drama that marked hers.
World Suicide Prevention Day has been commemorated every September 10 since 2003, but we still have many pending tasks, because although the National Program for Suicide Prevention was launched in 2020, the Superior Audit Office of the Federation points out that Mexico only invests 2% of the total health budget in mental health when the WHO recommends 10%. This is in addition to the fact that at least 85% of Mexicans with these problems do not receive care or treatment.
The latter data connects organically with my friend's conclusions. She states that in our race to success we neglect the importance of dialogue and the need to feel, exchange, ask for and provide support. I underline this because for her, as for most of those who survive the suicide of a loved one, prevention begins when we talk about what hurts us or when we have the role of the attentive listener, who receives the emotions of the other with respect and empathy.
Almost everything ends up being a matter of humanity: abandoning our prejudices in favor of a respectful exchange lays the foundations for collective survival. We urgently need to do so. We do not want any more suicides.
Sources: World Health Organization (Data from 2023).
National Observatory of Suicide in Mexico.
Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS).
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of Opinion 51.
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