Tis' a Cry for Help

THE BIG PICTURE
            This documentary is on suicide and depression among teenagers nowadays. It shows a lot about what most people think about health and how easy it is to miss that one victim of suicidal thoughts and depression. The one girl that they focused on was an all-rounded person with so many friends, successful education, and what most people would consider a good life going for her. Yet no one noticed that she was constantly considering suicide as an option to escape her pain. It shows that most people see a successful education and social life as a sign of good well-being when it could very well be simply a mask to hide the mental illness of depression.

PERSONAL MEANING
             Not many people extremely close to me have committed suicide but there was a case at my old school. A boy in my grade's mother jumped off the balcony of a hotel and there was once a boy who jumped off the second floor onto the ice rink below at the mall. There was a more recent case of my older brother's friend who committed suicide though my brother saw no reason why he would. He had been accepted into a fairly good college and had a girlfriend he swooned about enough to make you think he was living the life. But what really caught me was the amount of people who turn to the internet to talk about how they feel like committing suicide. A girl on a blogging site was about to commit suicide but her friend told many other people to help her convince the girl that life is worth living. It took many people to make her give up on suicide but later I started seeing people sending her messages such as "ATTENTION WHORE" or "if u were really going to kill urself u would have done it already without reading all these stupid messages" I was afraid it would drive her to kill herself again but I couldn't find out what happened afterwards because I fell asleep. But it made me realise, these people weren't considering death, they were considering a relief, an escape, or simply a way to ask people to notice them.

Tis' a Stress Article

MENTAL HEALTH: Ensure they get proper treatment by Tan Sri Lee Tam Thye on Http://www.nst.com (7/2/12)

http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/mental-health-ensure-they-get-proper-treatment-1.43132


SUMMARY
      This article is on the issue of how mental illness relates to violent crimes of murder of close family members and relatives of the criminal. The article also mentions that not all people diagnosed with mental illness are as violent as all of the others in the news and we should give them proper treatment so they will never reach that stage. They advise for mental illness to be taught in schools so we are able to see the signs of such mental illness like schizophrenia, or bipolarity.


BIG MEANING
      This relates to the whole of the world because many people are much too afraid or awkward to deal with those who suffer from mental illness. People avoid them and really don't want much to do with them but it is dangerous to not help them. All of these mental illness are usually very treatable and their are many an asylum that they can be sent to or simply a hospital that are able to give treatment. A lot of deaths  and murders in Malaysia nowadays are cause by either crime or mental illness. The article gives an example of a grandmother who suffocated her granddaughter to death and a dad who slit his own son's throat. And article that I've read while browsing mentioned a boy suffering from paranoid schizophrenia killed his own mother because "voices" told him to over and over. If people are not aware of these things it could put their lives into danger or even others.


PERSONAL MEANING
      This impacts me personally because mental illnesses such as schizophrenia especially are very prominent in Malaysia. If I am able to learn the symptoms of these and am more aware of how to help these people out, I can live a safer life and probably save the lives of many others as well. I've never had a personal case related to bipolarity or schizophrenia with the exception of my sister's friend in collage who started screaming with delight at my sister about how many durians they had then started scolding the chinese boy who was accompanying her about how many durians they had. Apparently she refuses to take her medication and has attempted to beat up the person who was supposed to make sure she takes her pills. My sister says that she is very nice but will burst into outrage in the next minute. My sister is very scared of her and so am I. She is endangering many people by not taking her medication. She as well as us should take their role to keep others safe and healthy!


SIDENOTE: A form of therapy that can help mental illness patients is "art therapy". You may read about it here because tis' cool. http://sundaypeople.nst.com.my/Current_News/SundayPeople/article/CoverStory/20081018173916/Article/index_html