MIND MOVES:Why is it that young people feel the need to take their own lives? What kind of world is this?
AS I walked home that night, it was as if the neighbourhood was in mourning. The whole place was as quiet as a graveyard.
This was especially strange as it was a Friday night. Normally there would be groups of teens everywhere you looked, some just hanging around doing nothing in particular, others with more sinister intent. Not that night; that night nobody was out.
Why had all these people suddenly vanished? Perhaps the local Garda officers asked them to move on? Unfortunately, the reason was much more tragic; it was the death of a young girl.
The young girl in question was liked by everyone; she was bright and bubbly and always had a smile on her face. Maybe that’s why everyone was so shocked by her death.
The thing that makes this death stand out in my head, almost a year later, is that the entire community felt it. The sad fact is that it’s not uncommon to hear of someone you know taking their lives. But this death seemed different.
No one ever suspected this bright, bubbly girl to be anything but that. No one ever thought she could have such dark thoughts. No one knew the inner turmoil she was going through. It’s sad to think that no one could see the pain hiding behind her perfectly applied smile.
No one saw past this smile and the good grades. What else was there to see? Even on the day it happened, none of the people she ran past could have imagined what she planned to do.
I can still remember sitting in chemistry when I got the text from a friend telling me the news. I felt numb. It seemed so unreal yet I knew immediately it wasn’t a joke.
I didn’t shed a tear until a week later. I was sitting in English class when our teacher decided we were going to study obituaries. I just sat there thinking I can’t do this right now; I have to leave this class.
The poor teacher hadn’t a clue what was happening. One minute I was asking to go to the bathroom, the next I was running from the room blinded by tears.
My friend followed me a few moments later; she had an idea what was wrong. Sobbing, I tried to explain that school had become my one escape; this was the only place where I was free from her death. At home I was haunted; all my friends had gone to school with her, everyone in my area had some connection to her, even my little brother and sister who didn’t know her had heard about it as their school was opposite hers.
This girl’s death had an impact on everyone in some way, and the atmosphere in the community was terrible.
In the local arts centre that same week, we had a visit from two poets. One was an actor and slam poet; the other an artist in every sense of the word. They had heard what had happened and they began the evening by expressing their condolences. They tried to lift our spirits during the evening, but it wasn’t until one of the poets performed a piece she had written earlier that day that the pain the whole community was feeling was revealed:
“What happens to us?
Us too afraid to let our light shine through the cracks
Us who don’t feel like livin’ no more
What happens to us?
Wish I could give you a
happy ending
Wish I could sing you a
happy song
Wish I could give an epic poem of all of us surviving, living, breathing
Not all of us do
What happened to us?”
I know of at least one other person in the past 12 months who ended their life the same way. The scary fact is that nearly every young person in this country knows of at least one peer who has taken their own life. I still can’t understand how one death has the power to bring a whole community to a standstill yet another goes by affecting only those directly involved.
Why is it that among those in pain, suicide has become a valid option to deal with the struggles that afflict their lives? Have we just accepted it as a fact of life?
Why is it that young people feel the need to take their own lives? What kind of world is this? What kind of world do we live in where these people can’t find someone or somewhere to turn to in their darkest moments?
Daire Ní Bhraoin, aged 18, is a member of the Youth Advisory Panel of Headstrong – The National Centre for Youth Mental Health (www.headstrong.ie).
Tony Bates is currently taking a summer break