The suicide of a 16-year-old in Batu Kawah, Sarawak who used an Instagram poll to determine her fate has thrown the topic of mental health into the spotlight again.
As a youth myself, it is important we acknowledge that the challenges my generation faces are vastly different from generations before, amplified by social media.
As children, we would occasionally be envious of our classmate having the latest Gameboy. Now imagine being able to see the entire world’s toys through your smartphone. It doesn’t help that people tend to put their best foot forward on social media postings. We see friends vacationing in exotic locations or doing fun activities and experience FOMO (short for “fear of missing out”), forgetting that we are comparing our “behind-the-scenes” footage to someone else’s highlight reel.
Despite social media’s ability to foster global connections, Malaysian youths still report feelings of social isolation. The National Health and Morbidity Survey (NHMS) 2017 reported that over a third of students aged 13 to 17 that showed depressive symptoms, felt that they had no close friends.
However, banning or restricting social media usage among youths is a clumsy solution. Social media is an almost essential part of youths’ lives today, just as Microsoft Office became indispensable to corporates in the 1990’s. There is a silver lining: on social media, especially Twitter, I’ve read many honest outpourings by young mental health patients. Some shared about barriers to getting and managing treatment, others of stigma, and others gave thoughtful recommendations on improving mental healthcare in Malaysia.
We need to bring these discussions into the physical and policymaking space. I applaud Syed Saddiq Abdul Rahman, Minister of Youth and Sports, for responding quickly to the Batu Kawah suicide case by calling all parties for an honest, national conversation on mental health. It is high time all stakeholders work together to address mental health from an end-to-end perspective. Mental healthcare is more than offering counselling services or focusing on suicide prevention. We need to tackle various areas on the spectrum, from learning how to express and process our emotions healthily, and building mental resilience early in childhood, to identifying signs of mental distress and accessing treatment, as well as managing mental illnesses at home and in the workplace.
Reframing or broadening the discussion on mental health may help in reducing stigma, in that, people realise that: (1) individual mental health is a continuous “work in progress”; (2) it is alright to seek help; and (3) mental health affects everyone, even those who are seemingly normal or highly successful. To this end, I echo my colleague Michelle Ng, ADUN Subang Jaya, in calling for the decriminalisation of attempted suicide. The punishment underlined in Section 309 of the Penal Code, that is, one year imprisonment or a fine or both, is counter-productive and cruel towards suicide survivors, who need help, not imprisonment. Furthermore, criminalising suicide attempts would only drive those who are considering suicide to ensure that they are successful in their first attempt.
In a larger context, reframing how we as a society respond to setbacks and failures – whether on our part or others – is also crucial to reducing stigma and risk towards mental health patients. It is a collective failure that fellow Malaysians saw the 16-year-old’s cry for help on Instagram as something trivial. It will also be our collective responsibility to ensure such a case never happens again.