Rising Cases of Suicide Issues in the Philippines

Thesis Statement: Finding out the cause and effects of suicide and its prevention and ending the stigma.

Subtopic 1: Factors that Affect the Rising Rates of Suicide

Subtopic 2: Prevention and Control of Suicides

Subtopic 3: Stigmatizing Suicide in the Philippines

Suicide, an act of intentionally causing one’s own death. It is a serious public and global health

problem that concerns each and every individual. It is an act that could be caused by a lot of

factors evident and existing in today’s environment that have affect the suicide’s cause. May it

be because of a mental disorder, in particular, the existence of depression, alcohol and drug use

disorders. It can also be because of an impulsive and sudden problems arising from financial

crisis, emotional breakdowns due to failed relationships or it could be due to a severe and an

unbeatable pain or illness, such pain and loss that could lead a person’s faith and life into death,

such faith that he or she could could not accept and endure. Thus, commits suicide as an escape

route. Moreover, a person who is experiencing or have experience a state or situations where

conflicts arise, have undergone through disaster- caused incidents, have suffered from violence

and abuse and have felt isolated from everyone and unaccepted by anyone due to an unfair

and harsh worldly discriminations. All of these or any of these factors could be and have been

the reason why a person have committed suicide or will decide to commit one. All of these

reasons is the reason to why the number of cases of suicides being committed keeps on going

up, up until now. These factors that the today’s world seems to heighten up. A cruel and harsh

environment that pushes a person deep and deep into a hollow hole of loneliness and sadness.

Every person’s life have its own ups and down, its own happiness and sadness. “Lucky for you”

as they say if your life is in its moment of happiness, where everything seems good and okay

and when even a problem seems light and bearable. However, if your life seems to be in its

lowest, when every single and little things seems to go wrong, when everything seems to be

too complicated, when it seems like a problem arises after another problem and you become so
frustrated and you feels like the whole situation is against you and that makes life unbearable

to bear and live with. Being in these situations and living in such conditions could cause a

person depression and other severe mental illnesses that could lead for him or her to suicide.

Depression, a common but serious medical illness that negatively affects how an individual may

feel, the way he or she may think and act. Depression brings sadness and inflicts a person’s

interest towards activities or anything for that matter. Bipolar personality disorder, a disorder

that extremely affects the emotions of a person suffering from it. It could either make them

ecstatically happy or could make them feel so down that would push them to indulge in

unhealthy and harmful practices, in worst cases suicide. Schizophrenia, a severe mental illness

that does not allow a person suffering from it to live a normal life due to the hallucinations and

depressions that it inflicts. Anxiety, may it be in any form, generalized anxiety disorder,

different social phobias, several kinds of obsessive- compulsive disorders and panic attacks that

could make a person feel exhausted and hopeless and make them feel that suicide is the only

way to make it through. Lastly, emotional impulse that afflicted due to unfortunate happenings

in a person’s life.

It is evident through statistical data and the environment itself that the existence and cases of

suicide is rampantly rising but this events could be prevented through various prevention

strategies. First and foremost knowledge is the based key to prevent the occurrence of such

acts. Knowledge to knowing what are the means of suicide could a person attempt to do so and

with knowing that one could reduce or even eliminate any way and chances of a person could

commit it. Knowledge to responsible information dissemination of things related to the topic. A
society- based, community based, school- based and personal individual way of interventions

against suicide. It is also important that the person itself who is suffering from that situation

must identify and accept his or her condition along with the people surrounding him or her.

With such actions of interventions the attempt to suicide may be prevented and the cases of

suicide being committed would lessen and hopefully suicide itself would eradicate.

From the perspective of a person who have not committed suicide an individual who have

committed one may seem odd and vulnerable for them. They may say that for them the reason why that

individual have chosen suicide as an escape is not really enough and unacceptable. However, for a

person who is going through such a rough situation, the pain and emptiness is not just enough, it is

actually already too, too much for them to bear and go through life with and as a conclusion they have

chosen to conclude their own lives. With these reasons why a person decided to commit suicide some

may say that they understood their perspective and they feel bad for them and they could only hope

that they were there to help them, to understand them and most especially to stop them from

committing such a tragic ending. Such different perspectives came from different views of different

individuals. Individuals that takes a situation and acts on it differently from how an another individual

does. With such different mentalities stigma is formed within the society. Therefore the people who

commits suicide as a way of them to call for help in return does not get the help that they need due to

this stigma regarded to suicide. However this stigma could be eliminated through proper and full

awareness of what drives a person to commit suicide. In this way the means of preventing such

happenings would be way more evidently effective.

Suicide must be prioritized along with the causes that brings a person to commit one. Instead of just

questioning why they choose to do it why not understand them and their reasons, the sufferings that
they have gone through. Try to see their side of the image, the dark, colorless and lifeless side that have

push them to just conclude such sad life.