She may be a shoo-in for president, but last Saturday, she came forward and made a lot of sense. Prompted by the tragic RVHS incident, President Halimah noted that the 16-year-old had attempted suicide 2 years ago. He was then referred to IMH for treatment.
“Attempted suicides are a real cry for help. We don’t know the full details, particularly whether he had continued to receive psychiatric help or medication in order to deal with his mental health after that episode,” Mdm Halimah said.
“We also don’t know whether it was due to school or...other factors affecting him as the causes of mental breakdowns are numerous and sometimes there is more than one factor at play.”
That made sense. I can think of a metaphor here: An avalanche starts with a flake of snow. And as it goes downhill, it adds to its weight, burden and size, until it comes to a stage where you can’t stop it anymore. To the young sufferer, it has become monolithic, having a mind of its own, and the only way forward for an avalanche is to continue its destined downward path, until it hits rock bottom.
Indeed, many factors contribute to the fall, and they all add up, to give it the oppressive strength to overpower, to rob whatever sliver of hope the child may still desperately cling on to.
However, Mdm Halimah confronted the issue head on. She singled out parents, teachers, school and society at large. She said we are “ill-equipped to deal with the situation.”
“”For parents,” she said, “the great difficulty is in not knowing whether the child is perhaps going through a growth phase, as "all adolescents with growth hormones raging through their bodies sometimes act out", or whether it is because of something much deeper.””
For teachers, well, they are already overloaded with work, “it is not possible to delve deeply into the issues affecting one child, which will require close monitoring, observation and engagement.”
And lastly...school/society. She mentioned how society has imposed high expectations on the young. She said: “We expect to see a linear progression in their performance with no interruption whatsoever, like some well-oiled machinery.”
"Parents compare all the time. We often say that a well-developed, healthy child is better than a troubled child who seems to be shooting all As but is suffering, but we actually send different signals to them.”
Yes, I concur. The signals are frustratingly mixed. We are, in reality, how our society has wound us up to be. You wind it up anti-clockwise, for example, and you get a society that is, well, none the wiser.
Our child is trying his/her darnest shooting all As, but is suffering, missing some academic marks, and disappointing us. They feel that they have to earn our affection, and even successfully jumping one academic hoop, with many more to go in their young life, they still harbour this crippling sense that they are just not good enough, because like Mdm Halimah said, “parents compare all the time.”
In a race to one finishing line after another, they are surely many running behind and many running in front, because there is only on top spot, one silver medalist and one bronze consolation.
In fact, in an intensely meritocratic and competitive society like ours, it is better for our child’s mental health to stand one step below the silver medalist, because to get 2nd place and then miss the mark by that much (or that little) is going to oppress the soul of the poor child, and his/her parents will be consumed or obsessed with the question, why can’t you come out tops?
Alas, the child is called by society’s many impersonal coaches to jump hoops so that at the end of one hoop is a hug and a smile waiting for them from the one they desperately seek approval from. But it never lasts, that is, the affection like milk and canned food, has an almost instant expiry date, before they are let go again to earn that same mechanical affection by jumping over another hoop and another and another.
Mdm Halimah puts it well, even against the same society that was the handmaiden of her pathway to the presidential top spot: “we expect to see a linear progression in their performance with no interruption whatsoever, like some well-oiled machinery.”
As an well-oiled machinery, we are all its nuts and bolts, the cogs and wheels in its mechanical flow, chugging along, to ensure it doesn’t deviate from its one-track, linear pathway to superior economic growth and maintaining that first world status. No derailment should stop that flow, and for every derailment, we just have to power the speed up to compensate (if not overcompensate).
This is where Mdm Halimah also observes: “There is still so much ignorance, stereotyping and prejudice in our society against people with mental health issues that parents fear doing more harm than good to their children's future by seeking treatment, which they delay with disastrous consequences."
Well, that ignorance and prejudice flow from how the society is wound up. It still goes anti-clockwise and we are thus none the wiser, or we simply refuse to face up to the reality/truth that something has to give in our relentless one-track advancement.
Let me end with the presidential advice: "It takes a tragedy like this to start us thinking deeply again about the mental health of our young. Most of our children can cope, are resilient and will grow up well. But not all children are the same. Some do need more help and not just from the school, but from everyone."
Yes, in a race, when you fire the first shot, you expect to see winners and losers at the end of it. That finish-line red ribbon is made for only the winner’s chest, and all the others, well, they lost. And we will compare, even if we pretend it really doesn’t matter, because comparing, like the coronavirus, is just highly infectious, and it runs in our veins in a society that is fiercely competitive, always striving for that top spot.
Indeed, we are a well-oiled machinery, and that is from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.
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