When I was young, I thought suicide is a stupid idea. Why choose to commit suicide while millions of people are eager to live but couldn’t due to sickness and other accidents. Besides, don’t you care how much your parents or your special one are afraid to lose you? When I see news or videos about suicide, these sorrowful questions popped up in my mind. But by the time I grew up, I started to understand WHY, as well as learned some reasons behind those who committed suicide. Year four at Liger Leadership Academy in Literacy my teacher has taught me and my classmate about mental illness. We’ve read a book named The Yellow Wallpaper which is about a woman with mental illness. She talked about her situation and how mental illness affected her. I’ve learned how serious it is and that gives me motivation to help those who need it.
Lack of knowledge related to teenage mood and lack of motivation to understand youth development is what usually happens in the Khmer family. “By seeing other smart students out there, the parents madly blamed their kid for not being smart. It’s true that every parent wants their kid to be intelligent and well-known. But the way they teach their child is wrong, instead of giving warm encouragement with great advice, they blame their children which pressurizes and stresses them.” (From Tik Tok video). This video taught me why teenagers have issues with pressure. I surely was disappointed as much as they felt because I have been through the same situation. I started to feel a change in myself. I know how much they have suffered and what are some things that they need to hear. For me personally sometimes I just need someone to appreciate some things that I’ve done. It would make me feel that I’m not useless as what my parents see me.
Due to Covid-19, my schools paused for a while for students’ safety. I’m actually happy with this circumstance. Don’t say I’m crazy because you’ll know what’s next. Because this virus happens I get more chances to spend time with family as well as others besides people at school. During this pandemic, my sister’s friends visited us. We had many conversation and that led us to a serious topic “Suicide”. My sister’s friend who had an experience of committing suicide told us her story. “My boyfriend was at work and I have to take him to his home because he doesn’t have a car. Then when I arrived at my own home, my mom told me “If you’re going out with a guy for hours, why not work at a bar? We would get money if you work there, instead of going out with guys like this.” “I was shocked! I couldn’t expect this from the person I call mom. Who I love together with respect. I replied with tears. I won’t ever work at such a place. “I don’t care, just go and make money at the bar,” She said. ” I immediately thought dying is better than working at a place like that.” As you see family conflict is one of a big problem that leads to suicide. Try to stay close to your family and learn about them. Always be careful of what you say because work does hurt and it might also kill.
My friend who is suffering from living in a new society told me that “I miss my old school, my friends and teachers. It’s hard to be in a new school, I have no friends, I’m so lonely. My grades are horrible. I couldn’t focus on school anymore. It’s so stressful here I don’t want to live anymore. Sometimes I wanted to commit suicide but thinking about meeting my old friends again stop me also thank to you who always cheer me up.” This is also a sad thing to know and learn about. I tried my best to cheer him up, give him reason to live, tell him that his life matters, to our country and the world. As time passed by he tried to heal all the pain and it’s getting better.
There is this online friend of mine who is suicidal. He added a picture of him hurting himself by bleeding his hand because he was so stressed and didn’t know what to do. So I tried to talk to him. I said “Don’t hurt yourself, it doesn’t make anything better, instead try to find what’s wrong and what you can do about it.” We’ve talked a lot along with giving him a lot of motivation also.
You probably wondering, How does suicide affect Cambodia? As you know our country is a developing country so we need people to work especially people who have good ideas on how to develop our country. A person death might not matter to you but if that person is educated, we can make them feel their power, treat them the right way and make them believe that they can make change and yes of course they can change our country, it can’t be the whole country but at least something, and if everyone create a small change, we all will make a big change in our country. To help those who are struggling with mental health I have a plan. My plan is to do more research on how to help suicidal or depressed people so that I know clearly how to help. When I actually learn how, I will try to find those people who are struggling with mental health and help them through what I’ve learned on the internet and in real life.