In Korea they
jump off bridges. Here they jump in
front of trains. Unfortunately, many
people don’t have basic coping skills, and seeking or even admitting to needing
mental help is considered shameful. Very
1950s way of thinking.
Last year I
had a student struggling with depression & anxiety issues. Would you believe that one of the villagers
said to me “I heard one of your students has depression.” As if a child’s mental health issues are
something to gossip about. It also
angered me that someone on staff shared confidential info about a student. Especially when many people generalize all
mental health problems as being crazy or weak-willed.
Kyla thinks
that the root issue for all this suicide could be that they have no concept of
faith or a God who loves them more than they can imagine. That might be true in Japan, but many Koreans
are believers in some sort of religion, Eastern or Western. Another contributor is the intense pressure
from all sides to succeed with zero tolerance or room for failure. Also, this is a society where shame or loss
of face is the worst thing that could happen.
In the West people say “I was so embarrassed, I could die!” Well, here, they actually do. Another factor is that most people don’t
think in terms of having a Plan B or C, so when things don’t work out according
to plan, suicide is a viable alternative because your life is over anyway.
There are
countless stories about people who kill themselves after a breakup with their
girlfriend or boyfriend. That I don’t
understand. It’s not as if that person
was the last one left on earth. You can
date someone new. Then there’s the woman
who killed herself when her beloved dog died.
Dogs have a short life span compared to humans. She should’ve known this was going to happen
eventually. I’ve had three dogs and two cats die in my
lifetime. You can get another
dog. In this particular case, I believe
she must have had mental issues.
A couple
years ago a well-known Korean news reader broke up with her boyfriend. She sent him text messages begging him to
come back to her. The jerk made the
texts public. So she jumped off the roof
of her apartment building. Most
Westerners in that situation would have simply ridden out the embarrassing
incident knowing that people would forget about it in a week or two. But use a permanent solution for a temporary
problem, and you can’t undo it.
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