Suicide is never the answer to your problems, actor Manju Warrier reminds those who lost everything in the Kerala floods. She has written a detailed post on Facebook, appealing to the media to not report such suicides, quoting psychiatrist CJ John.
Manju begins the post with a question she was asked in an interview once. "Once a journalist had asked me if there are big setbacks in your life, are you the kind of person who would consider suicide?”
She told him, never, Manju writes. “I also said if there are setbacks we can outlive them. Whatever comes, I will not take my life out of fear -- this kind of power, to overcome all setbacks, is there in all human beings. But it depends on us how we nurture the power. "
Manju then says how she thought of this interview as she read stories in newspapers of people taking their own lives in the aftermath of the floods that devastated Kerala last week.
Acknowledging that water has scalded the people of Kerala, not just wounded them, she says the pain of what the water took away cannot be forgotten. But those who are contemplating taking their lives should think whether that step would ensure their families would get everything back -- everything they lost in the floods.
“Wouldn’t the burn injuries hurt even more then? We didn’t bring anything when we were born. We created all this, and we can still do it. This devastation is not the end of anything, and in your effort to recreate everything you lost, the entire world is with you,” she writes.
“We have been witnessing shining examples of people helping each other around us. It is not the time to destroy oneself, but it is a time to create. You are not someone who has been defeated, but someone who should win,” Manju writes.
Then she appeals to the media, “I request the media to please avoid news of suicides.”
She then quotes Dr CJ John, chief psychiatrist at the Medical Trust Hospital, Kochi, “It is dangerous to report suicides related to floods. When you contemplate the fact that there are lakhs of people who are facing the same sorrow and devastation, then this kind of reporting is inappropriate, and there may be a ripple effect, encouraging other suicides."
Manju also appeals to the authorities to hold counseling in camps and later continue them at homes. She repeats that there is a warrior in everyone that no flood could take away. “Wake up that warrior and tell life that it can’t defeat you.”