{"id":142530,"date":"2018-06-18T00:42:52","date_gmt":"2018-06-18T00:42:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/why-uk-asians-need-to-talk-more-about-suicide\/"},"modified":"2018-06-18T00:42:52","modified_gmt":"2018-06-18T00:42:52","slug":"why-uk-asians-need-to-talk-more-about-suicide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/why-uk-asians-need-to-talk-more-about-suicide\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Why UK Asians need to talk more about suicide&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure>                                  <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Woman\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/A554\/production\/_102042324_sawoman.jpg\"\/>Image copyright                  Getty Images                                                    <\/figure>\n<p class=\"caps\">I was just 12 at the time. I remember hearing a scream from the kitchen while something musical was blaring out of the television.  <\/p>\n<p>Rushing to see what had happened, I found my mother clutching the phone with both hands and crouched on the floor.  <\/p>\n<p>&quot;Your masi&#039;s (Aunty) gone,&quot; she said.<\/p>\n<p>Tears and the visceral grief that is so familiar to those of Asian heritage followed. My head flooded with questions: Why? how?<\/p>\n<p>But what came next was a sickening blow. We quickly learnt that she had taken her own life.<\/p>\n<p>I spent the following months and years trying to figure out why she would do such a thing. She must have desperately needed an escape route - a way out of her misery.  <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Mental health &#039;taboo among BME groups&#039;<\/li>\n<li>Is there institutional racism in mental health care?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In 2016, 1,457 women in the UK took their own lives but it is not clear how many of them were of South Asian heritage. <\/p>\n<p>But what we do know is that people of this background struggle to be open about their mental health. <\/p>\n<p>Figures from the NHS show that a white person is two times more likely to seek help than a person of black or Asian ethnicity. So one possible argument: If you don&#039;t get help, how do you battle those poisonous thoughts?<\/p>\n<h2>&#039;Clash of East and West&#039;<\/h2>\n<p>Professor Dinesh Bhugra, who specialises in mental health at King&#039;s College London, said there was no doubt suicide remained a problem within the demographic. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;We know that rates of attempted suicide among South Asian women are two-and-a-half times more than white women, and the 18-to-24 age group is particularly vulnerable,&quot; he says.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;A lot of this is down to cultural conflict. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;Having to hold down a professional job and then to come home and cook and clean - this clash of East and West can be difficult to cope with.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>I&#039;ve often heard how trying to adhere to traditions projected by elders in the community can cause distress among those who are more in tune with British life. <\/p>\n<p>Not wanting to embarrass family or cause them any shame puts them under even more pressure.  <\/p>\n<p>The conservative attitudes that still hold sway among older generations and the sense they sometimes feel of &quot;losing&quot; British born and educated, perhaps more liberal, offspring to a different culture is widely discussed.<\/p>\n<p>Marcel Vige, head of equalities and improvement at the mental health charity Mind, says their evidence paints a similar picture.   <\/p>\n<p>&quot;People from South Asian communities often tell us the strong sense of community and importance placed on family can be a very positive thing for their mental health,&quot; he says.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;But for many people, the need to preserve the family&#039;s reputation and status in such close-knit environments can lead them to remain silent about their own feelings. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;Previous research suggests that pushing those feelings down can lead to increased worry and can contribute to the disproportionately higher rates of self-harm within South Asian women.&quot;<\/p>\n<figure>                                                                                                       Image copyright                  VTFF<figcaption>Image caption                                      Naz Shah MP says the problem of suicide in South Asian communities is &quot;getting worse&quot;                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>So what can be done to tackle the problem of suicide and shame among those of South Asian heritage? <\/p>\n<p>The Labour MP for Bradford West, Naz Shah, believes South Asian cultures remain largely oblivious to mental health problems.   <\/p>\n<p>&quot;It [suicide] is absolutely an issue and it&#039;s getting worse,&quot; she says.  <\/p>\n<p>&quot;There isn&#039;t even a word for depression in some South Asian languages and a whole heap of work needs to be done to raise awareness of these issues so people are not ashamed to get help.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Rahema, a 21-year-old from the East Midlands, agrees.  She has battled suicidal thoughts all her adult life after suffering bouts of intense depression. <\/p>\n<p>She says: &quot;It needs someone famous who&#039;s Asian to say, &#039;Hey it&#039;s ok to feel sad and depressed because it happened to me and you can tell people about it without being judged.&#039;<\/p>\n<p>&quot;That would really help me. Perhaps my mum and dad, and people of their generation, could listen more as well.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>A couple of months ago, my mother called to tell me a British Indian girl I used to play with as a child had taken her own life. <\/p>\n<p>I felt numb, and the confusion that infiltrated my head during my aunt&#039;s death, came rushing back like an unwelcome visitor.  <\/p>\n<p>Surely it could have been prevented?<\/p>\n<p>It would be wrong to say somebody is at fault here - after all blame is often the very thing that leads these lives to be wasted.  <\/p>\n<p>The need to talk about your feelings and seek proper medical help seems the real solution to stop more families from suffering. <\/p>\n<p>For support and more information on emotional distress, click here or call the BBC Action Line for free, at any time, on 0800 066 066.<\/p>\n<p>Follow Sima on Twitter @sima_kotecha<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright Getty Images I was just 12 at the time. I remember hearing a scream from the kitchen while something musical was blaring out of the television. Rushing to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":142531,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-142530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}