Judgemental society killing our youth

Discrimination based on identity is contributing to an alarmingly high rate of suicide in our children and youth, writes Gerry Georgatos.

CONTENT WARNING: This article discusses suicide

SOME WANT TO BE the voices of the multitudes. I prefer a multitude of voices. I have assisted many to voice because we are not all equal, neither are we homogenous, nor are we multipartisan of the means to the end and indeed to what is that end.

With suicidality, there are counter-narratives of self-injury, counter to mortal exhaustion, of irresponsibility, of the implication that negativism is an architect of doom, of standing in the way of nurturing positive living. This discounts the trials and tribulations of people.

Counter-narratives are powerful tools for the propagandist, exploiter and oppressor. Counter-narratives are used to legitimise violence, for instance, police violence, to legitimise the use of deadly force, to allow for naming and shaming laws, to legitimise draconian laws, to legitimise xenophobia and the hatred of benign differences.

Too often, stigma-based bullying ends in suicide

The national conversation we need to have is of the grimmest reality — suicide is the leading cause of death in Australia’s teenagers and bullying plays a large part.

I do not want to ever know of a suicide, though I have responded to thousands of suicides in my life. I am saddened when the individual who is worn to suicide is blamed. I will never condemn anyone. I am always alarmed when I hear someone say, “I can’t take it anymore”. They have been emotionally and psychologically injured.

Suicidality and its narratives cannot become polemical, but they have. The polemics should be reserved for the galvanising of the “political will” to “mass invest” in diverse suicide prevention strategies.

Dramatist poet, Luigi Pirandello, once wrote:

‘If only we could see in advance all the harm that can come from the good, we think we are doing.’

We must have standards of comparison, to acknowledge diversity, to validate differences, so no one is oppressed. Organised human life cannot be successful if it is mired homogenous in ideologue. This has never served humanity universally. Attempted many times over, it has cyclically culminated in abominations.

When we aspire with singularity to the highest form of humans, we destroy the richness of our diversity and ironically remnant the individual — subjugated by docile inhumane biometrics. We leave many people behind.

One of the best lessons you can learn from life is that we are different despite our commonalities and community reckonings.

We must never forget to never get in the way of people being true to themselves and never hazard to incur anyone to ridicule by others. It does matter what people think, despite some saying “to hell with what people think”. We must thread through our existences that we do not define anyone; they define themselves. Let them be free to be whoever they want to be and they alone define or redefine.

Australia is a leader on suicide awareness, laggard on prevention

Australia must do more for victims to ensure that they can heal, writes Gerry Georgatos.

I am always reminded of Marcus Aurelius:

‘The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.’

The suicide rate globally is one in 100 deaths a suicide. Australia is 12 suicides per 100,000 deaths. Australia’s First Peoples are harrowed by around one suicide in 18 deaths. Majorly, all suicide tolls are comprised disproportionately of socioeconomic stressors — more suicides are accounted for the lowest quintile of income base.

I have written widely for decades about poverty and suicide. Today, I write of those little has been written about — whose identity is a liability.

Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote:

‘The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct [them] to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.’

Too many who are daily victims of the judgmental, of diminution, of tirades against their identities, norms and convictions have taken their lives. We only need to be respectful and understanding so they do not.

When you scorn hatred upon someone for appearing to be different or for being different, you can destroy someone’s life with the lies of your hatred.

The leading cause of death in Australia’s children aged ten to 17 is suicide. The leading cause of death of Australia’s youth aged 15 to 24 is suicide. The more west we journey across the continent the more conservative its overall population. The more draconian the laws. The higher the suicide rates of children and youth.

Rising child suicides should alarm all of us

I remember a father who found his son hours after his suicide. The father lay his son down and cradled his body through the night until responders arrived in the morning.

I do not want to disaggregate into categorical risk groups or identify the different types of identities with disproportionate suicide rates, so high it is abhorrent, a national abomination. I want to prosper the solution of a less judgmental society and a need for civil education, non-antagonistic, where we recognise the right of everyone to be who they want to be — and that there is no comparator to some superhuman.

The suicides due to the needless curse of identity liability will reduce dramatically. Almost 40 per cent of all deaths in young people aged between 15 and 25 are attributable to suicide. At the turn of the century, suicide rates began to marginally decrease but in recent years, with identity increasingly polemically under fire, brutally relentless, the suicides of young people increased.

We need to speak out educatively, carry hearts and souls compassionately and with clear-mindedness, and not dull ourselves into charged derogations. There is a growing recognition that education is the bedrock of the way forward.

If we don’t, I fear there will come a time when we will realise the enormity of this increasing crisis and have little choice but to access and publish accurate population-level data regarding suicidal behaviour, and suicides, of people whose identity became more than a liability but an inescapable burden. Critically, by then, the crisis will have got worse, and for a time, the publication of such data will serve many inadvertent and appalling agendas, including the demonisations of differences, of diverse identities.

I have said and written that no nation, no society, should peddle a dominant ideology or identity.

Not recognising differences is a significant hit. It hurts and for many this pain is unbearable. We must never violate anyone’s liberty. Education can spread fast and it never needs to be antagonistic or protagonistic. It is always more efficacious if its delivery examples respect for everyone. The principle of doing no harm guarantees the eventual guarantee of the uptake of concomitant education.

When the young die by suicide in the bloom of life because we have made their identity as if their demon, then we are the problem.

If you would like to speak to someone about suicide you can call Lifeline on 13 11 14.