Suicide cases on rise, few to help them avoid step

NGO, which helps people in distress, receives around 7-10 calls a day.

Despite an increase in the suicide rate, only a handful of helplines are working towards emotional bandaging of those who wish to end their life. An NGO told this newspaper that there are days when they receive at least 10 calls from people in extreme distress.

The NGOs, armed with volunteers to help the distressed, try to soothe the callers down by just listening to them. Out of the few helplines, Sumaitri is a Delhi-based NGO that receives around 7-10 calls a day.

The Sumaitri helpline is available from 2pm-10pm on weekdays and 10am-10pm on weekends. A volunteer in the centre told this newspaper that mental health and well being is an extremely neglected issue.

“Suicidal thoughts are not the first thing that comes to a person’s mind when they are in trouble. These are usually a prolonged phenomena. Mostly people don’t open up to family and friends and keep on harbouring such thoughts. I have been working here for ten years now. I am not a trained psychologist. We help the callers get comfortable.”

The volunteers act as a vent and serve as an immediate relief for the emotionally disturbed. But the job of the volunteers is not easy. All of them have stories that unnerved them, of callers who were adamant on hurting themselves and never called back.

Apart from Sumaitri, there are a few other helplines that work in different regions of the country. When this newspaper contacted a few helplines, there was no response on a lot of them.

The only 24X7 suicide prevention helpline in India, Aasra, reveals shocking data that every year around 1 lakh people commit suicide. It also explains that with one suicide, more than six lives are devastated.

The age group most vulnerable to suicidal tendencies is the youth between 18 and 35. Volunteers at Sumaitri explain that most people are unaware of the helplines. “The people suffering from depression have no clue that help is just a phone call away. Most don’t even know that they are clinically depressed.”

Even though the numbers highlight that suicide is amongst the top three causes of death amongst the youth, there is a social stigma which deters people from seeking help.