Sombre thoughts…

A sombre post this time. 

We got quite a rude shock the other day. A few days earlier, we were driving towards the carpark at home in the evening, but we couldn’t go on any further as there was a police van and ambulance parked in the middle of the road. The officers had set up a small tent-like thing on the road in front of the “bridges” connecting the different levels of the block to the carpark. Our immediate thought was that someone had been knocked down by a car and that it must’ve been fatal (the tent covering the body). That would have been sad, for sure, but unfortunately that’s not what happened.

From what I hear, one of the Chinese dailies ran a story that an 18-year old girl had jumped from the 24th floor.

An 18 years old Singaporean Chinese girl fell to her death from the 24th storey of Blk 533 Bukit Panjang Ring Rd on Friday 03 July at 7.25 pm, she was pronounced dead 20 minutes later.

She had left her shoes and purse at the bridge on the 24th floor (not sure why but this fact sticks in my mind and will not go away). Not being selfish, but imagine if we’d arrived home a little bit earlier. Makes me shudder to think about it. But, more importantly, this poor girl. 18 years old! What would have pushed her to that final, fatal decision? What must have been going through her head at the time? Very saddening and very troubling, too.

Singapore is certainly not alone in the sad situation of teens taking their lives. But put it together with a seemingly serious – and rising – incidence here of kids being overly stressed and seeking counselling for depression and anxiety and so on, the pipeline for future such tragic ends appears to be well-stocked. Why are these kids so stressed or depressed or anxious? Schooling? Money problems? Dysfunctional families? Broken hearts? Apparently, school and exams are the biggest reason for teen suicide, followed by relationship issues. WTF?? Some serious prioritisation issues happening behind the scenes here, and not necessarily a problem with the kids, either.

Of course, everyone in such a situation presumably still has that final decision to make, so it may not be a foregone conclusion. But, do these kids know of alternatives or do they have access to trusted forums for talking their problems out? Unless its a sad, sad case of these kids being ignorant of these things, then you’d have to assume that they do not have these alternatives. This is a sorry state of affairs – as we sadly discovered a few days ago inside our own estate and so near to our own house. God speed we find a way to reverse the trend. Peace.