Every time we hear about a young person who ended his life, or a student who threw herself from a high place, or a man who chose to leave silently, we mostly treat the news as a passing individual incident and then quickly move on to the next piece of news, but the painful truth is that the recurrence of these incidents means that we are no longer facing individual cases, but a serious social and psychological indicator that deserves deep consideration.
The latest figures in Jordan indicate that there were 166 suicide cases in the year 2024, compared to 160 cases in 2023, with a clear focus on males with 135 cases compared to 31 cases for females, and 16 cases were recorded for individuals under the age of 18.
But the real question is not how many have committed suicide, but how many people are living today on the verge of psychological breakdown without anyone seeing them? What is worrying about the phenomenon is not just the increasing numbers, but the nature of the current society that is gradually pushing individuals towards psychological isolation; today's youth are burdened with work pressure, unemployment, rising cost of living, fear of the future, difficulties in getting married, and constant comparison through social media, and women, in turn, face immense pressures between work and family and the ideal image they are asked to live up to daily.
What's more dangerous is that many people no longer find a safe space to talk. Everyone speaks or wants to talk, but very few actually listen. In our Arab societies, mental illness is sometimes treated as a weakness, depression as "whim," and resorting to a psychiatrist as a stigma. Therefore, some people collapse in silence long before they reach the final moment of explosion, and specialists estimate that a large percentage of those who commit suicide had previously suffered from psychological disorders or depression.
Perhaps what explains the higher percentage among men specifically is that men in our societies are often raised with the idea that they must always be strong, not cry, not complain, and not break down or express themselves, turning their pain into silence, and their silence into isolation, and sometimes their isolation into tragedy.
Suicide does not start at the moment of death, but begins with a long accumulation of feeling worthless, loneliness, psychological exhaustion, and loss of meaning. Therefore, addressing the phenomenon should not only be through statements and statistics, but by rebuilding the concept of psychological support within the family, schools, universities, and the workplace. We need a social and family environment that allows individuals to acknowledge, admit, and express their fatigue without fear of ridicule or judgment.
We need parents who listen to their children, not just monitor their school grades.
And schools that detect psychological pain before it turns into tragedy.
And media that handles mental health as a real societal issue, not a luxury.
And a society that understands that a person may smile on the outside, and be good at acting, while completely collapsing inside.
In the end, the most dangerous thing a person can live through is not poverty, failure, or even loneliness, but feeling that their absence would not be noticed by anyone.
