It is common news to hear Japanese primary school kids committing suicide because they cannot cope with stress. I think stress management is really important. I went to attend a lunch time talk on stress management and was shocked to hear various stories from the 2 speakers who are occupational therapists.
Let me just share a couple of stories with you.
1. This boy who was taking his "O" Level exams was so stressed up during the exam that he totally blanked out on the very first thing he needed to shade on the answer sheet. No, I was not referring to any questions on the exam paper. I was referring to his name. He was shocked by himself that he could not even remember his own name. Of course, he broke down and left the exam hall.
2. There was another girl from one of the SAP schools. She has always been top in class and scored more than 95% in all her subjects. And one day, she scored only 87 in her Maths paper and received so much pressure from her parents that she literally lost it. What was it? She lost her mind. Totally. She went crazy. And no matter how much counciling was done, nothing could bring her normal self back. The string was so taut that it broke. Her parents regretted giving her so much pressure, but it was too late. Nothing could bring their daughter back.
***
Suddenly, some forcefully forgotten memories unlocked themselves from some part of my membranes and started to flash across my mind.. One... by one... I remembered...My late cousin who jumped off from a building... Nobody knew what was the reason... We only knew that it was a tragedy for such a pretty girl to die in such a horrible manner... Perhaps her late mother who jumped into the sea had such a great impact on her... That she had to follow her mother's footsteps...
An aquaintance who took his own life... He was the top student of the Arts faculty. He was the top student in his previous school. He only left a letter to ask his sister to take good care of their parents. A couple of days before he was gone, I remember seeing him at the bus stop outside school and everything seemed alright.
A classmate Audrey who suffered from depression and dropped out of school... She was one of the prefects in school with excellent results.. But one day, she just didn't come to school anymore.
A teacher from NJC who lost her mind one day and forgot to come for class... Our monitress went and found her blabbering to herself in the office. It was supposed to be our GP test. And she just gave the stack of test papers to the monitress and stared blankly into space. We only know that an ambulance was called and took her away. We never saw her since then and we had no idea what happened to her...
***
Sometimes, we just have to be sensitive to the people around us, give them a word of encouragement to brighten their day, or simply to listen to their woes. Sometimes all they needed was a listening ear or a hug. And that was all that would have made a difference.
At least I thought it would.
To this day, I regret not being able to have made that difference in their lives. And sometimes, there's no second chance to do it.
2 comments:
In today's society, people are not longer starved physically but they are starved spiritually, mentally and emotionally.
Being prone to depression could be genetic....my landord in Canada who was a doctor was saved from an attempted suicide by his wife who found him with an empty bottle of panadols. Dr. Smith had shared that his mother and brother committed suicide...hence it was not surprising he did likewise!
May God bless everyone! Let us all learn to be happy and contented.
i think its just the lifestyle of singapore, no?
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