AS THE country grapples for answers for the sudden spike in the number of suicide cases, psychological counsellors are quick to dispel the notion that the Covid-19 pandemic was the reason why 1,142 Malaysians took their lives last year.

Counsellor Chloe Ng said the pandemic was merely a trigger to the various problems and pressures these people were already facing in life.

The pandemic, which had led to financial ruin for some businessmen and job losses to thousands of bread winners, just exacerbated their problems to send them into a death spiral, she told The Malaysian Insight.

Ng said suicides were not the result of a single cause, but a combination of other factors.

She said these people might already be in depression due to the various pressures of life but when the trigger comes, it only intensifies their depression.

“Bit by bit, it will trigger suicidal thoughts,” she said.

The 1,142 suicides was an 81% jump from the 631 cases in 2020, according to police statistics.

That had caretaker Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin saying the self-inflicted deaths were worrying.

Ng, who joins other psychological counsellors in appealing to the general public to play their part in preventing suicides, said suicide prevention is not only for experts to handle.

She said the general public has a role to play by taking appropriate action if their loved ones and friends show suicidal tendencies.

However, Ng said the general public need to learn to “read the danger signs” first so they could advise their loved ones to see trained counsellors.

She said there are two categories of signs they need to know about, the obvious and the non-obvious signs.

“The obvious signs are ones which the suicidal person is hell bent on killing themselves by telling anyone who cares to listen with clear threats like, ‘It’s better if I die’, ‘If my ex does not get back to me, I’ll kill myself’.

“The less obvious ones are passive ones. These are people who could be saying things like: ‘I don’t want to be a burden to my family’, ‘I’m tired, it’s better if I don’t wake up tomorrow’, ‘Soon you won’t have to worry about me’, etc. “

Ng said people should pay special attention to the not so obvious warnings.

“A lot of people, even though they know something is not right with another person, are simply afraid to ask, thinking that if they do, it will just drive them over the edge.”

“That’s a myth. It’s important that we ask so we can get them help.”

Ng said even though suicides come from all age groups, adolescents are among the high-risk groups.

She said the Ministry of Health does a suicide survey every few years and the 2019 National Survey of Adolescent Health and Morbidity found that one in five adolescent Malaysians suffer from some kind of depression.

“In other words, our adolescents are high-risks, especially when they are at a transition point in life, like after graduation when they have to seek a job.”

Look out for calls for help

Another counsellor, Tan Chee Seng, said as the country lifts the various Covid-19 restrictions as it transitions from the pandemic to the endemic stage, people should not be complacent about mental disorders.

Tan said while many might rejoice in the reopening of the economic sector and a slow return to normalcy in life, there are also people who might begin to feel the increased pressures of life.

He pointed to students, as an example.

“They have to return to physical classes and an environment that could get them infected, catch up with lost studies and exams.”

“Office workers might feel the pressure of work as they might be asked to perform more to catch up with backlogged orders.”

Tan said for business people, they get depressed by things like interest rate hikes, which would make business recovery more expensive and rising debt.

He said one sign a person is seeking to kill themselves is that “they will not go quietly”.

“They will very often send out weak distress signals beforehand, as they struggle on the edge.”

Tan said these are the people who suddenly say things like, ‘If I jump from here, all my stress will be over,’ ‘I feel miserable living,’ and ‘I don’t know what’s there to live for’.

“Don’t take these words lightly, because the person is sending out a call for help and wants to be noticed or have someone to talk to.”

He also said if a person suddenly gives away something that is very precious to them, this is one sure sign of the person having made up his mind to commit suicide.

In conjunction with World Suicide Prevention Day last month, Khairy, in a statement said police responded to 467 suicides in the first half of this year alone.

He said a variety of factors contributed to suicides, including psycho social and environmental, unemployment, financial problems caused by work, and mental illness.

The statement also stated that according to the World Health Organisation, there are 703,000 suicides worldwide each year, which also means that one person commits suicide every 40 seconds. – October 13, 2022.