Human beings
are definitely highest evolved animal species on the planet earth. The advantage
that we get over our nearest ancestors is because we have well developed brain,
which helped us become intelligent and civilized unlike other species.
Our brain has
given us all the modern technologies and objects that makes our lives easy and comfortable.
Brain has developed the concepts of modern science such as laws of physics and
chemistry and biology, it helps run such a big and vast group of people that we
call humanity on this planet despite many internal and external threats that we
face on daily basis, with the potential to wipe out our existence.
The same brain
also becomes a liability for some of our species members. If not controlled,
the brain devises all kind of tactics to control the body and propel it to
perform many functions which are averse to the very concept of a civilized
world. Although individual’s body performs anti-social activities such as crimes
like murder, rape, dacoity and burglary but the actor who plans and executes these
acts is actually his brain. So much so that brain directly or indirectly sometimes
causes the destruction of the very body in which it resides and we blame the individual
that he has committed suicide.
According to an article published in 2012
in the International journal of
environmental research and public health nearly 800,000 to a million
people commit suicide every year and die. Suicide is the 10th leading cause of
death worldwide. The rate of suicide is higher in men than in women,
with ratio of 3- to 4-times more.
Why do people commit
suicide? It is the question which everybody asks after such incidents are
reported. There may be enumerable reasons and perspective when one tries
to answer that question. The perspective of an expert such as psychiatrist and
medical counselor will be far removed from an ordinary person on the street. One
will find problem in how the person could not bear the pain of pervasive
suffering that a depression creates, to as simple as that ‘he wanted to escape
from all his problems that he thought were impossible for solve’.
There are other
reasons such as psychotic, impulsive, philosophical yearning to depart, sense
of guilt, and some mental illness such as schizophrenia. Nevertheless, in all
these conditions eventually it is the person’s brain which is to be blamed.
The experts who
study brain and suicide have been trying to understand this emotional
negativity that brain creates. Out of many chemicals in the brain, experts associate
this tendency with the serotonin. It is a neurotransmitter that helps transmit
the neural signals and also sooths the mind. Studies indicate a link between suicide
and the low level of serotonin in the brain. In some suicide victims, the brain
has been found to retain this neurotransmitter by not allowing its absorption
by the neural synapses. This results in calming effect and that is how the
anti-depressant works. It is know that greater dose of anti-depressant propel suicidal
thoughts. However, serotonin levels alone cannot lead someone to suicide.
However, experts believe that it is
the brain which creates an alternative world in the mind of a suicidal person. In
that alternative world that particular person is the most miserable, inferior
and unwanted. He sees no use or meaning of his life, what so ever. There is no future
for which he can live, no people whom they can count as their own
friend or accomplish. The life for him becomes meaningless, and not worth living
even for a second. It’s the whirlwind of robust negative emotion that paints
the whole world dark on the canvas of his brain. It becomes an intense painful
situation where the pain of harming own body becomes minimal, in fact that pain
becomes a pleasurable event, a toll to escape all pervasive suffering. In that fit of negative emotion a person decides
to end his life that his brain pictures as miserable, and unwanted by others
around him.
For the other normal people, or brains for that matter, who are not in that state of whirlwind thinking,
the act to commit suicide is illogical, irrational and cowardice. They would
think how one can’t see the good things in life, future possibilities,
happiness and instinct to live. However, many who would think in positive way
have also gone through that negativity at times which creates the thought of
suicide or even have successfully committed it.
The experts believe
that suicide does not solve any problem rather it creates many other problems.
It devastates the families and people close to the victim, fills with pain and
intense felling of guild, anger and regrets that haunts them for many years.
The patients who suffer from illness of brain should be constantly treated, monitored
and counseled so that the web of negativity that their brain creates can be busted
and their precious lives can be saved. Many lives have been saved by practicing
these routines.
