Over the last few years, I have noted an increase in the stories of people committing suicide in the workplace. For instance in the last few years, there have been multiple police in Australia who have killed themselves at their station. And while there have been over 130 police suicides in Australia since 2000, most of them have occurred after 2015. And I assume this is happening in other professions too.
A bit more of an outlier event happened in Finland today though, where an elected member of parliament in his first term, killed himself at the parliament building. He was only thirty years of age. Just after reading about this, another article came through the feed that Mieli Mental Health Finland's Crisis Hotline has seen an increase of 23 percent in calls year on year, through June and July summer months.
No matter what the markets are doing globally...
Mental health is at an all time low.
And unfortunately, I don't think it is going to get better. At least, not before it gets much worse. Because I reckon that many people are expecting support with it, which isn't likely to come. Maybe in an ideal world it would be there and everyone would get just what they need, but there is about as much chance of that happening any time soon, as there is of having a wish granted after throwing a coin into a well.
But don't worry, there is another growing industry that will help solve part of the problem, as voluntary assisted dying is increasingly extending to mental health issues, not just physical issues. And for those who think that VAD it is pretty rare, in Canada in 2023 (the latest numbers I could find), VADs accounted for 4.7% of all deaths. Sure, most of them were for terminal illnesses, but with aging populations, increasing mental health issues and decreasing capacity for employment or to get support - I suspect that in the coming years, there will be further increases in the numbers.
Overpopulation problem solved.
But I get it. For the people choosing to take themselves out of this world, it might feel like the only thing they can actually control. There are plenty of people who are struggling mentally, physically, financially and emotionally and likely feel that they have little impact on their own outcomes. They are passengers in life, left to the mercy of the merciless. Choosing when to go, comes with a certain amount of dignity with it.
And as the governments increase their military expenditures, corporations make more profits with fewer people, and less resources are spent on keeping people healthy, more people are going to get pressured into making decisions they wouldn't make, had the environment been different.
Yet, it seems that society has forgotten that the purpose of itself is to make things better for people. Instead, the last decades are about increasing entity wealth, and consolidating control into the hands of ever fewer people. The less sense of control people feel they have over their lives, the worse mental health tends to get.
And this is why I believe that while it might be beneficial to get help when possible, it is also good to understand that it isn't always possible. And even if some help is available, it doesn't mean it is going to be of the kind that will help all people. Instead, I think it is probably wiser for people to seek help, whilst simultaneously researching and applying ways to improve without the support. Don't put off starting to heal, because the conditions aren't perfect for it. It is the same when looking to try something new.
Don't wait for better conditions. Start.
We all have our struggles in life and while it is often impossible to compare them one for one because we are all different, it is also good to note that a lot of people have overcome a lot of things worse than the majority of us face. This doesn't mean that we can overcome it, or those close to us, but it means that there is evidence to suggest there is a possibility, and it isn't all completely hopeless.
Often we are told to push through.
But there are other ways to get to the other side also.
Taraz
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