World Suicide Prevention Day: I felt like a waste
I attempted to take my life at the age of sixteen and later attempted to take my life again at eighteen years of age. On both occasions, the water had spilled over the pot and I had no further space available for silence, pain, and suffering. The denominator in both instances was the same group of emotions: worthlessness, hopelessness, helplessness, undeserving, unneeded. I felt like a waste, a disgrace, a burden, and being a 24x7 miserable machine.
The first time around, I was experiencing the whirlwind of teenage, fighting an invisible war that others couldn’t see, navigating my new reality while I saw the façade of my life crumbling down – Perfectionism. My grades were dipping, my friendships were non-existent, life was online, and the silence in my household was louder than any shouts. I believed I was alone. I believed no one cared. I believed the world would go on without even realizing I was gone.
The second instance, when I was eighteen, the ache was thicker, more smothering. It was like I was bearing years of unspoken shame and sorrow on my back. What continued to recirculate in my thoughts were those same cycles of feeling “undeserving” and “unneeded.” I believed I was too far gone.
But here I am, writing this. And that in itself is evidence: suicide isn’t the end of the story. Survival is possible. Healing is possible. Life, even when fragile, can be rebuilt.
Individuals do not die by suicide because they wish that life itself would cease to exist, but rather because they desire their pain to end. It is seldom the product of a single cause; more likely, it is from a combination of great struggles. Mental illness such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, or PTSD has a way of perverting thinking and exhausting hope, while worthlessness and hopelessness lead one to believe that things will never get better. Painful life experiences like money problems, relationship issues, illness, or school pressures can contribute to the burden, particularly when compounded with loneliness or feeling misunderstood.
For too many, a history of trauma, abuse, or bullying provides fodder for shame and guilt. Added to this, the shame about mental health muzzles individuals, preventing them from seeking help until their pain becomes too much to bear. At times, suicide may even occur spontaneously in the heat of the moment, particularly if an individual has ready access to means of suicide. The common string tying all these together is not an actual desire to die, but a cry for help aimed at ending intolerable misery.
In Kashmir, the tragedy of suicide is usually followed by yet another injustice: the manner in which society speaks of the deceased individual. Too many times, individuals minimize the depth of their anguish by labeling them with one word — “pagal” (crazy). This reduction negates the gravity of what they have been through, peeling off the layers of hurt, trauma, and silence that took them to such a desperate act. Rather than seeing the human in them and the war they silently fought, society relegates their tale to the corners of shame. This not only demeans the struggle of the departed but also mutes those still fighting the same battles, further intimidating them to be quiet.
In Kashmir, there is a high level of stigma around mental health that further deepens the silence of those already struggling. If one does have the courage to voice their struggles, they are usually silenced or belittled. If a person exhibits symptoms of sadness or melancholy, they are speedily diagnosed as “depressed” and treated as if they alien, fragile, or broken. Rather than opening the doors to healing, this type of labeling and alienation closes them, further driving people into isolation.
Lost in this silence is the fact that with every struggle, there is a human being who requires compassion, not condemnation. What individuals in distress require is compassion, empathy, and the knowledge that they are not burdens. They require a supporting shoulder, an unbiased listener, someone to tell them that they do matter. Shattering the stigma is not just about education; it’s about creating a culture where seeking help is rewarded with compassion, where exposure is not mocked but admired, and where silence is diminished by solidarity.
Though mental health battles are the inner wars, the outer realities of Kashmir life impose layers of stress that complicate survival. Joblessness is one of the highest in the nation, making educated youth feel hopeless about their prospects. Unemployment for a man in Kashmir, where family obligations to provide and succeed are so large, doesn’t just pinch the wallet — it annihilates identity and pride. This is coupled with the increase in drug abuse. As heroin and opioids infiltrate Kashmiri society, increasing numbers of young men become mired in patterns of dependency, guilt, and despair. Addiction destroys health, depletes relationships, and intensifies the sense of despair.
Conflict and instability add to the dark. Formative years spent living in uncertainty, curfews, and violence leave scars that are not always easy to see but define the psyche. Families that are already traumatized are too often unable to supply emotional scaffolding, leaving young people to sort through their pain on their own. Broken family structures, domestic violence, and societal pressures around honor and expectations also feed into the despair. And when people do seek help, the lack of adequate mental health infrastructure in the region leaves them with nowhere to turn. Together, these realities create an atmosphere of entrapment — as though life is a room with no exit, and suicide becomes the only door visible.
When discussing suicide, one such reality that cannot be overlooked is the way disproportionately it takes men’s lives. In India alone, nearly three out of four suicides are committed by men. Worldwide, men also die by suicide at a greater frequency compared to women. It’s not because men don’t feel as much pain but because men are socialized to suppress it since childhood. Boys are conditioned with a script: be tough, don’t cry, don’t appear weak. The only emotion that society allows them is anger, while on the other hand grief, vulnerability, and sadness are failures of masculinity. Bottling up the emotion has devastating effects. Lacking the tools to express or work through their pain, many men just carry it silently until the silence gets too much.
This silence is compounded by what some describe as the “male loneliness epidemic.” As males mature into adulthood, their friendships tend to remain superficial, activity and joking based and not emotional. Though women tend to rely on one another in crisis, men are left to bear their troubles alone with no comfort zone to confide. Loneliness by itself is easier to survive, and when coupled with unemployment, relationship dissolution, addiction, or economic stress, it can quickly slide into hopelessness. Without resilience, without connections, without license to be weak, too many men find themselves at the bottom where suicide seems to be their sole release.
We must shift our language about men and mental health. We must instruct boys that crying is not weakness, that seeking help is not shameful, and that their worth is not defined by silence or stoicism. We must promote deeper male friendships that move past superficial interactions and create communities in which men can rely on one another. Equipping men with emotional vocabulary, coping mechanisms, and empathy will not only save lives but heal generations to come. For strength is not in suppressing pain — real strength is in deciding to let it out.
In Kashmir, the shame around male vulnerability cuts even deeper. Boys are instructed from an early age to “toughen up” and “be strong,” frequently in homes already strained by conflict, economic instability, and intergenerational trauma. Tears are ridiculed, grief is looked down upon, and silence is touted as a virtue. As these men mature, they embrace a script for masculinity that has no room for vulnerability. In a world where everyone is unemployed, where drugs are on the increase, and where opportunities always seem to be throttled by uncertainty, men are pushed to the wall — pressured to provide, pressured to survive, but offered no means to filter the overwhelming burden of these demands.
The epidemic of loneliness cuts with a sharper edge in Kashmir. Male interactions tend to be limited to casual interactions — cricket matches, political discussions, or idle chatter — never spilling over into the emotional intimacy that true connection demands. This makes many Kashmiri men lonely even in the company of others. The silence grows more oppressive in the context of social shame: to confess depression or suicidal intent is to invite dismissal as “pagal” or as weak, isolated from family and society.
This combination — cultural silence, lack of material resources, and tight conceptions of masculinity — is taking Kashmiri men’s lives. Shifting this takes bravery at all levels: families have to let boys cry and talk; schools and colleges have to establish spaces for safe emotional discussion; and communities have to substitute judgment with compassion. Kashmiri men are worth more than silence. They are worth friendships that can contain their hurt, workplaces that understand mental health, and a society that identifies vulnerability as human, not humiliating. Until we reconstruct the script of what it takes to “be a man” in Kashmir, far too many will remain silent and suffer.
The statistics themselves paint a tragic picture. Across the world, according to the World Health Organization, suicide ranks as the second-top cause of death for those between 15–29. In India, it is the youth who bear the worst load: almost 67% of suicides happen between the ages of 18 and 45, with 35% between 18–30 alone. Suicide claims 17% of Indian youth’s lives between the ages of 15–29, the second-largest cause of death behind road accidents.
In Jammu and Kashmir, the crisis cuts sharper. Between 2020 and 2022, the state counted almost 1,700 attempts at suicide — a rate of two attempts daily. In the period 1990 to 2004, there were over 20,000 attempts at suicide, with over 3,000 fatalities, the majority among the 16–25 years age group. Current accounts point out that though women may try to take their own lives more frequently, men kill themselves more successfully, illustrating the lethal silence of masculinity. Unemployment has directly led to 78 suicides over the past two years alone. Behind each figure is not a statistic but a story. A young man beaten down by despair. A young woman muted by silence. A family left wondering what they could have done otherwise.
Each year, September 10th is celebrated as World Suicide Prevention Day. It is a day to honor the lives lost, to hold space for those still grappling, and to be reminded that suicide is preventable. Awareness, however, is just not enough. We need to shift from silence to dialogue, from stigma to empathy, from apathy to action. Prevention starts with hearing. With checking in with our friends even when they tell us they are “fine.” With building safe spaces in families, schools, and communities where vulnerability is not mocked but honored. With providing our shoulder when someone feels like a burden, with reminding them that they are needed even when their mind says otherwise. Today, I reflect on my sixteen- and eighteen-year-old versions, overwhelmed with despair. I wish someone would have said to me: You are not a waste. You are not a disgrace. You are not unneeded. You are human. And you are worthy of life.
If you are struggling today, let this be your reminder: You are not alone. There is help, there is hope, and there is a future beyond the pain. Your story is not over.
The writer is a mental health advocate
