THERE IS NO ONE AT ALL – FROM MV TO SOCIETY

FROM MV “THERE’S NO ONE AT ALL” TO SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

The other day, I came home from work to the news that one of my niece’s classmates committed suicide.

The first question that popped into my mind was “Why?”

Maybe you are like me.

When we hear that a child who is in his prime, with a future and a life ahead of him, decided to end his life, the first question we tend to ask is “Why?”

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This morning I came across several statuses on Facebook about a newly released video by Son Tung- MTP titled “There is no one at all.”

I went to Youtube and watched it right away.
And I want to share some thoughts about this video.

The first thing I want to say is a message I want to send to Son Tung.
“Thank you for your courage. You’ve brought to light a painful issue of our society in the most artistic way possible.”

It is very easy for us to judge a child as “weird“, “rebellious“, “destructive“, “spoiled” or “doing crazy things“, but few know that behind those troublesome facades is a lonely and miserable soul, longing for love and understanding.

It is easy for us to say “Don’t commit suicide“, but few people know that “There is pain in life that is worse than death.”

That’s not to say I endorse acts of rebellion or endorse suicide. And I also believe that Son Tung’s intention with this video is not to suggest or encourage teenagers to commit suicide.

As a doctor and a mother, I completely agree that suicide is not the way to solve problems. I also understand the concern that if a person with depression sees another committing suicide, he/she may feel the urge to do that.

But the truth is — no happy person would want to commit suicide just because he/she watched a video with images of suicide.

And so, instead of banning our children from watching this video, we as parents, teachers, instructors, doctors, and mentors should use this video as an opportunity to have conversations with our children, students, mentees, and our patients.

Let’s come to this conversation with an open mind, an intention to listen to understand, to connect with them because maybe they are suffering, in silence.

Whether we are social media users, influencers, or celebrities, we all have a social responsibility to speak up about important social issues.

We may choose to ignore them or worse – avoid talking about them. But that does not mean they don’t exist.

They EXIST.

In fact, according to the World Health Organization report in 2012, a person dies from suicide every 40 seconds in the world. This number is even worse due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Therefore, we need to talk about them more.
There need to be open and serious conversations about mental health, about suicide.

So that no one would feel “There’s no one at all.”

So that no one will resort to suicide as the only solution.

So that we don’t lose our loved ones — because of what should have been said but not said.