Suicide and Depression: Are We Becoming Desensitized?

I was recently on a bus with my mom on my way to a neighboring base, and one of the other passengers began to talk about how someone that he knew had jumped off of a building. The bus was extremely small with only about eight people riding in close proximity. In other words, everyone could hear everything.

The passenger proceeded to describe the suicide in terms like “splat”, “crazy”, and “nasty”. He told the whole story with a lighthearted attitude as well as a laugh here and there.

To put it bluntly, I was disgusted at the middle aged man that was boisterously sharing his take on the suicide to everyone on the bus. I was embarrassed by him; we both are Americans in Japan, and the English-speaking Japanese were being exposed to one of the most obnoxious Americans that I had ever seen. I saw their faces, and I saw the looks that they gave each other. All that I wanted to do was stand up and shout at this man to sit down and that not everyone appreciated his little story, but by the time that I got over the initial shock he had already moved on to something else.

This all got me thinking: is suicide nothing to anyone anymore? Has depression’s new name become crazy? Are some people so cruel as to laugh at a person taking his or her own life?

I have been depressed, and sometimes I still have to deal with it. I’m not ashamed to say that before I was treated for it, I tried to take my own life. And I know for fact that there is nothing funny about suicide or depression, and that I am not crazy.

I see so many people my age taking pictures of themselves with fake guns in their mouths and fake cuts on their arms and it makes me so sad. Some people in today’s society have turned depression into something humourous, and even glamourous.

Depression is serious. Suicide is serious. Some people need to starting taking both of them seriously; they need to stop laughing; they need to stop glamourizing it; they need to stop being so close-minded towards so many people that need help.

This isn’t a blow at everyone. I know that everyone in the world is not like this, but the people that are need to stop. The need to get off of the road of desensitization is a big one, and I hope that people do.