You are Worth It

by Pasithea Chan

Consider this, you go to bed each night hoping to see another day better than yesterday. You leave home for work hoping to come back to your family. You go through this tedious routine day after day living on those hopes. But what happens when this routine lacks that hope? It becomes a pointless cycle of endless suffering. And that endless suffering is the story of a large group of people across the world. You’ve seen them in school as loners, bullied kids, and nobodies. You’ve seen them at work yelled at and sloppy. You’ve seen them at home as your sister or brother who are problematic, insomniac, or are constantly failing in school. You may have even hated them as drunken fathers who beat your mothers or stoned mothers who took all the money to buy drugs to be happy but kept you hungry. In your neighborhood, they were homeless and penniless. You can’t remember their faces until you read about them throwing themselves off a bridge, getting hit by car, or dying from an overdose in some shady building. These are the stories of souls consumed by pain, loneliness, failure, low self esteem, vice, debt, rejection, broken relationships and of course stigma.

In a society that advocates accomplishment and freedom of choice; we look up to people who have strength and success. We use them as a shield and beacon as we build expectations and general assumptions forgetting those can’t board that train. We filter out fragile or sensitive people by classifying them as broken or damaged because of the circumstances they lived in. And so we give them space as how we like to call it hoping they will seek help and that we won’t need to be seen with them. We treat them as defected goods or statistics of a growing population that is failing and falling on a daily basis. We don’t see them like us because we are functioning, busy with work, focused on succeeding, and have no time for the meek or weak. In the process we dehumanize them leaving them to suffer from depression, a silent killer we helped foster. And because social media, and education talk about depression and suicide only after tragedy strikes, they are as guilty as we are. In other words, like us, they too have failed to reach out to the victims.

It is not our place to dub someone as sick or weak especially someone who needs help. But the truth remains that somehow we all are responsible for such deaths via our contribution in our daily lives to their daily depression as they face their daily pain. The numbers are staggering. For instance, in Kenya, a country where data on suicide and depression is hard to collect; 4.4% of Kenyans suffer from depression. Meanwhile, the number of suicides there in 2018 rose by 58% compared to 2017. In other words, there are 1,435 suicides a year! In Lebanon another example, there is a suicide every 60 hours and an attempt to commit suicide every 6 hours! Difficult life conditions such as poverty, unemployment, complicated relationships, health issues, and broken families are responsible for these alarming numbers of suicide due to depression. Sadly, we only stop seeing them as numbers or sick people when they belong to our circle. And though some may give us hints through changes of personality and habits, many leave us baffled with questions. With jobs taking most of our time, a lot of parents aren’t able to be home for their kids. A lot of teachers aren’t able to focus on taking up courses or training to save these children because they are busy doing masters in their area of specialty to get better pay. A lot of hospitals and law enforcement are swamped with cases of violence and current issues so they can’t focus on training and practicing d-escalation so they miss the clues. Our businesses invest in rising stars. Our televisions interview and foster content that supports healthy lifestyles, fashion, and luxury. Our educational systems teach patriotism, math, languages, science, and religion but not compassion or kindness. Our songs and art touch current issues, relationships, trends, and conquests. We have books, magazines, shows, and podcasts teaching us how to improve ourselves in looks, social skills, interviews, jobs, and lifestyles. We don’t see mental health support groups or help line numbers except on flyers, newspapers, clinics and hospitals for mental health. Nobody wants to say they have mental issues. Nobody wants to talk about what goes in the head of someone who is so tired from life, hopeless, and in so much pain. Nobody wants self pity or to look needy. But the question that remains, what do we do when loss strikes our community, our family, our school, and our loved ones?

Nobody is an island is an absolute truth. We live in communities because we have needs not just those that keep us alive biologically but also mentally and emotionally. We need to exist, to be seen, to be heard, to be felt, to be supported, to be understood, to be accepted and to be relatable. It’s important that we search deep down for that lost human aspect in us to rebuild notions of empathy, kindness, and care. We need to admit that each one of us contributes to each death of these people as per the roles we have. If you are mother or a father, you are a model and a beacon of affirmation. The way you talk to your kids and the way you view them and address them and their dreams, dictates their destiny. When you use negative remarks such as loser, worthless, idiot, failure, and embarrassment, you are destroying your son or daughter’s self esteem. When you as a parent maintain a violent, abusive, and stressful environment with fights and aggression; you are killing your kids. As a teacher, when you humiliate, ridicule and compare students, you are killing them. As an employer when you exploit, humiliate, dehumanize, discriminate, and abuse your employees because they need the job; you are killing them. When you are a company owner or businessman and you raise the prices beyond the consumer’s ability to pay for what they need burying them in debt; you are killing them. When you are hospital and refuse to admit people who are poor leaving them to die on your doorways, you are killing them! When you are a social media trendsetter idolizing money, looks, fame, luxury, and status without considering giving back; you are killing them. As a politician, when you steal public funds, defraud the people, destroy the public sector, take away jobs, raise taxes, and disrupt democracy; you are killing them. When you own a TV station and choose to suppress freedom of speech or twist reports on human rights violations and crime, you are killing them. When you are a religious leader who classifies them as infidels, harlots, excommunicated, unwelcome, ungodly, and a pestilence to your congregation; you are killing them.

So how do we stop killing all those people on a daily basis? We can start from the core by reminding them you can do more if you stand and fight and if you choose to live. We can do them a favor, when we say that life is hard but you are worth it and we are here for you. We can show them that we don’t judge them for their adversities, weaknesses, vices, and mental states. We can do that by being careful about how we talk to them, view them, listen to them, regard them, and treat them. We can welcome them by leaving bigotry, hate, differences, and hurtful remarks behind. We can give them a place to be by opening channels and groups for them to talk, perform, be heard and seen. We can make them belong by making help available without stigma or discrimination. We can make them trust us by keeping their stories from being exploited and used against them in employment, education, and having a life. We can teach ourselves how to really treat others as we wish to be treated.

And though no one should be held solely responsible for these deaths, we need to understand the mental process that brings them to the conviction that death is the only result we can get if we don’t view contribution to depression from  an accumulative perspective. Every day we do things that contribute to their pain and exacerbate their conditions. All I can say is, lucky are those who were able to find suicide notes explaining why. Lucky are those who were able to save those they love in the last minute. But how unlucky some must’ve been to live a lifetime haunted by questions that will never be answered. It doesn’t take much out of our pockets, times, and lives to help people even with just sweet nothings such as a smile, a greeting, or letting things pass. But it takes great restraint, clarity, and readjustment of priorities to get a perspective on things such as suicide due to depression. I hope that my words make you and your friends who read this change your ways. I hope that this article makes you a kinder person and that you remember that people are like fingers grown on the same hand yet with different potentials and strengths. We are all humans and we all deserve to live but some people out there need to be reminded that they are worth it. You are worth it.

Thank you for reading and remembering those who need help remembering their worth!