Growing up, cousins Abel and Shirley Chia* were close. Their families lived in the same neighbourhood and being the same ages, they attended school together. While they didn’t hang out in the same friend groups at school, they remained privy to each other’s life happenings. Abel knew when Shirley had her first kiss in high school. Shirley comforted Abel when he got rejected by his crush. They studied together for the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) national exams. Shirley stayed behind to attend university locally while Abel moved to Boston in the United States. The years passed but they continued keeping in touch with each other’s lives.
Shirley was also the first person that Abel told when he had planned to take his own life. “At the beginning of the year, he said to me that this would be the year he committed suicide. He didn’t say when or where. I spent every waking moment in anxiety, just waiting for the call,” she told us. That call would come nine months later—Abel threw himself off a high-rise building and left a note in his backpack with family contact details.
This was not the first time that Abel attempted suicide. Two years ago in Boston, he tried and failed. His Facebook page is filled with daily accounts of his depression, all of them pointing to a specific incident that happened at university three years ago, which triggered the decline of his psychological and mental state.
In some ways, the call that afternoon came as a twisted sort of relief—it was finally over. Or was it just the beginning of another difficult phase of life for Shirley? Shirley is, unfortunately, one of many people in Malaysia who knows a loved one who committed suicide. Health Minister Dzulkefly Ahmad reported in a parliamentary sitting last March that suicide cases in Malaysia increased by 10% in 2023 compared to the previous year, with a total of 1,087 cases of suicide. Unfortunately, that increment doesn’t seem to be slowing down—and with each suicidal death comes the living people who have to continue dealing with grief in their wake.
“It took me more than five years after the incident to feel some semblance of peace. Now, I can share the story without breaking down,” Clarissa Ng told me. Her best friend Valerie Tay committed suicide at the age of 25 after a long battle with depression. She was also diagnosed as bipolar. “She had been telling me for the 12 years of our friendship that she wanted to die when she turned 25,” Ng continued. While Ng believes that her best friend died happy, it didn’t make it easier for her to continue on with life the same way. But Ng recognises that she should count her blessings—in fact, her best friend’s mother told her the same thing. “During her funeral, I cried so much. Her mother came over to tell me that she tried her best and was in a better place. She wasn’t crying. I told myself, if even her mother could be strong, who was I to feel sad?”
People say there are five stages of grief but it’s not at all linear.
Like many others who have gone through similar grief—or even grief, in general—time is a balm that soothes the pain, but getting there is a different path for everyone. Grief comes and goes, with some days being harder than others. “Going through the grieving process is essential to healing, no matter how long it lasts,” said David H. Rosmarin, director of the Spirituality and Mental Health Program at McLean Hospital in a Harvard Health interview. “And the first step is to allow yourself to grieve. Don’t keep it inside and hope it goes away.”
“People say there are five stages of grief but it’s not at all linear,” said Nicole Kong*, whose brother took his own life in the bedroom next to hers during the pandemic lockdown. “I remember burying myself in work to keep my mind off the grief, but there were days when thoughts of my brother would just hit me out of the blue. I could be driving to work, listening to music, lying on my bed, or even in the middle of a conversation and find myself holding back sobs.”
There is an old saying that grief shared is halved, and Ng learnt that by sharing the grief with Tay’s siblings. Part of her coping mechanism for the pain of losing Tay was getting the tattoo of a butterfly. “It lives most beautifully for seven short days,” Ng clarified—just like her friend, who lived a short life.
Some, turn towards a higher being. “As a Christian, I relied heavily on prayer and worship songs to get me through those dark days,” said Kong. She also depended on her partner and close friends for support, especially those who reached out and shared fond memories of her brother. “It assured me that he had not lived in vain and that his life, no matter how short, had impacted others positively. Ultimately, I think giving myself grace and time to heal really helped me through the storm,” she continued.
That said, we human beings are more resilient than we give ourselves credit for. For reasons unknown, we all carry a bit of sadness within us every day. Yet, we find a way to go through our daily routine and even be happy in the moment. This sadness, it seems, serves as a reminder of our fragile mortality—and a testament to our resilience. However, grief from the death of a loved one who did not want to live any longer is a weird one to process. The idea that it was them who initiated this—of their own volition—can sometimes lead one to wonder: Was I not enough for them to want to live?
“For me, the hardest part to deal with was the guilt—what if I had intervened earlier? What if I had spent more time talking to him and reassuring him of his worth? I was plagued with these thoughts for God knows how long and I still wonder from time to time, but I’ve come to accept that I can’t change the past—I can only learn from it and do my best for the loved ones around me now,” said Kong.
It’s a dangerous path to go down, one that Mohaniah Sulaiman* is familiar with. At the tender age of 12, long before she had the chance to confide in her mother the growing pains of teenhood and her first crush, her mother died from an overdose. It wasn’t as though she didn’t see it coming, Mohaniah said in retrospect. Her mother had been disturbed, suffering from substance and domestic abuse. Her father died prematurely in a car accident, and she thought that would have been a turning point in her mother’s relationship—but that didn’t happen.
“I was old enough to understand the concept of her suicide, and it changed the way I grew up,” she said. “Coupled with growing hormones, I became extremely resentful of my late mother. But now I realise that resentment was also a different type of grief because I was so, so sad that she would leave us like that. Did she not love me and my siblings? She would have rather ended her pain than see us grow up. Things may have worked out better in the future, who knows?”
Maybe if she had sought treatment, my life would be vastly different than it is now. But because I have the privilege to seek help, it can end with me.
Who knows, indeed. Mohaniah is now living a happier life, having been to a therapist and psychologist to help her work out her trauma. She realises it’s her privilege to be able to do so—something her late mother could not do. “Maybe if she had sought treatment, my life would be vastly different than it is now. But because I have the privilege to seek help, it can end with me. I’m stronger now,” Mohaniah concluded.
An acquaintance I knew since I was seven years old took his life a few months ago. While we had never been chummy, there was a period in my teens when we interacted in closer proximity thanks to some classes we took together. When we left high school, the only communication we had was the occasional exchange of comments on Facebook. The news of his death came to me one weekday afternoon, in the form of a text message in a group chat.
It wasn’t until I knew of the details of his death—he had unalived himself in a location less than two kilometres from where I had been at the time—that I found myself affected by it. It’s not the same kind of grief his family members are going through, and I do not want to categorise it as such—but it definitely shifted something in me. The realisation of the ripple effect that suicide has on the people who know you—especially when you know it could have been you—must be another form of resilience too, is it not?
*Names have been changed for privacy purposes.
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