Just a few months before the July university entrance exam, 19-year-old
Tran Thu Huong (not her real name) thought that she was a genius with an
exciting future.
"I often left school to work
on new inventions as I found that my teachers weren't capable of teaching
me," she said.
Huong wanted to create a machine
that made the earth stop turning and another machine that can give Vietnam
sunshine all year round.
"By driving back winter, the
sunshine would see crops flourish people's health would improve," she
added.
But, her teachers and friends
didn't understand her strange ideas, leaving Huong feeling isolated.
"They shunned me, I was very
lonely and I wanted to die," she said with tear-stained eyes.
A far cry from her dreams of eternal
sunshine, Huong made the choice of eternal darkness and swallowed a handful of
sleeping pills before lying back to die.
Fortunately, her mother realised
what was happening before it was too late and called for an ambulance.
Huong is now recovering at the
Mai Huong Day-care Psychiatric Hospital.
Nguyen Thi Sau, head of the
hospital's Health Examining Ward, said around 6,000 people come to the hospital
every year for psychological treatment and 30 per cent of them are aged 15 to
25.
Many come to Mai Huong Hospital
after recovering from suicide attempts in other hospitals' emergency wards, she
said.
"Taking care of
psychological health is still a strange notion for residents, especially young
people. Suicide can be prevented if the patients receive timely psychological
consultancy and treatment," Sau added.
The latest government survey
found more than 4 per cent of young people aged 14-25 had suicidal thoughts or
attempted suicide in 2010, double the figure from 2006.
More than 7 per cent of the survey's
10,000 participants said they self- harm because of stress, while 21 per cent
of them said they have no hope for the future. It was also found that females
are twice as likely to attempt suicide than males.
Doctor Bui Quoc Thang from the
Hanoi-based Paediatrics Hospital said that the most popular form of suicide was
using sleeping pills, raticide and pesticide, while the main reasons are family
pressures and bleak prospects.
Nguyen Thi Hien, Huong's mother,
said that Huong had always been an excellent student and was studying at a
famous high school in Ba Dinh District when she started having strange ideas.
"She is self-sufficient in
studying and I never have to warn her about school work," she said.
After classes, she would
immediately sit down at home and devote herself to studying while ignoring
every entertainment.
"Perhaps too much studying
and not enough leisure put pressure on my daughter and caused her
delusion," said Hien.
After nearly three months of
treatment at the Mai Huong Hospital, Huong still dreams about dancing school
books every night.
Following the release of alarming
statistics which show suicide is one of the 10 leading causes of death in
Vietnam, experts have called for better support channels to cater for those
suffering with depression.
Director of the Mai Huong
Day-care Psychiatric Hospital Ngo Thanh Hoi called for a hotline to be set up
to support people having suicidal thoughts.
"I think it is the most
effective way to treat stress and psychological scars for people who cannot
find anyone to talk to," he said.
Hoi also called for more
specialist training courses, so that those giving advice are fully-trained
experts in the field.
Nguyen Van Anh, founder of the
Centre for Psychological Crisis Prevention, said that people having suicidal
thoughts like Huong often want to confide in others, but don't know how to
share their thoughts.
"Most people who attempt
suicide have experienced a long period of sadness and disappointment," she
said.
Anh confirmed that suicide can be
prevented, but at the moment, people don't have skills to identify the key
signs of depression.
Only 14 per cent of youths having
suicidal thoughts keep away from other people, so only quick-witted people are
able to recognise their strange behaviour patterns, she said.
"Vietnam has not had a
professional suicide prevention system, and also lacks the individuals,
organisations and programmes to prevent suicide," said Anh.
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