I Swear You Will Be Fine

Dear Josh,

There are ads all over London on mental health and suicide statistics. When I was in Westfield the other day, I saw one that said 18 people die by suicide daily in England. Jess and I did a quick calculation to compare Singapore and England. I was surprised that England’s was far higher. Even taking into account the much higher population.

Is it better or worse to talk about it? Does it trigger people with suicidal ideations to hear about suicide? Or is it better to actually talk about it? I really don’t know.

I remember Aunty K failed her test with SOS when she wanted to volunteer there because she didn’t mention the word “suicide”. But I also know from Shalini and Lynn, that there was a lecture at your university late last year that talked about suicidal ideations. And it upset you so much, you had to leave the lecture. And Shalini had to come find you after. Strangely, it appears that this was the beginning of the end.

There’s a new mental health TikTok video trending. It features a whole lot of people on a “stay” campaign. Like “I stay for my cats”, or “I stay for xxx”. Jess and I were talking about this. And we don’t like it. Surely it can’t be as simple as this. And we all know how much there was for you to “stay”. My personal opinion, and this is probably now totally flawed and slanted because you are no longer here, is that it is selfish to ask someone to stay- knowing how much they are suffering. Of course, if you were still here, I would still ask you to stay.

So, I really don’t know if all these advertisements etc are actually helpful for mental health. I can understand ads pointing people in the direction of help. And even support groups- I know England is far better than us in this. We literally need to beg to join a support group in Singapore. But the rest of it, I don’t really know.

I guess only you know what finally makes someone make this decision. It will be something we think about for the rest of our lives. You can tell us when we meet again.

Love,

Mum