In Lebanon, volunteers speak up to battle suicide

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BEIRUT, Aug 4, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Her trainers beating down on the pavement
along Beirut’s seafront, Nour Safieddine, 24, cuts past strollers ambling in
the evening sun. In her bright pink t-shirt, she is running to survive.

“I run to carry on, so life can smile at me even if it made me cry — or
in fact, not to die after the thought of suicide crept into my head,” the
journalist and graduate student wrote recently.

In Lebanon, mental health and suicide have long been deeply taboo
subjects, with both major religions in the tiny country — Islam and
Christianity — condemning the taking of one’s own life.

But one in three adults in Lebanon will develop a mental disorder by the
age of 75, a 2008 study found.

The small Mediterranean country has been rocked by decades of war, and
weathered endless political crises in recent years as it fights to stave off
an economic meltdown.

To shake the mould and help save lives, Lebanese like Safieddine are
speaking up.

The sudden deaths of her sister and father around one year ago sent her
into crippling depression, but running has helped pull her out.

In May, she bravely shared her own struggle with depression in a public
social media post.

“I decided I had to give positive energy to these people and remind them
that life is worth living and that they deserve to live,” the tall, lean
athlete told AFP.

She was surprised by the positive response.

“I felt like my experience was the experience of many people who hadn’t
dared to speak up about what they were going through,” she said.

The issue has been getting a wave of attention in Lebanon in recent weeks
amid concern over rising suicides.

– ‘He fell’ –

The first seven months of this year alone have seen 89 suicides in
Lebanon, compared with 143 for all of 2017, according to Lebanon’s security
forces.

This year’s rate amounts to roughly one suicide every two and a half days,
but social norms in Lebanon may mean suicides are underreported.

“You have families who said, because of stigma, that he fell,” said Nour
Kik, of the health ministry’s mental health programme.

To fight rising numbers, a group of mental health professionals and
volunteers launched Lebanon’s first suicide prevention hotline in late 2017.

The Embrace Lifeline has received around 600 calls since November, said
Omar Ghosn, a psychiatrist and board member of the Embrace association behind
it.

In a small, bright office in downtown Beirut, around 45 volunteers work in
shifts to receive phone calls from people in distress, but also worried
relatives or friends.

“Callers are women and men of all ages,” but teenagers especially rely on
the service, said Sally, who like other hotline volunteers did not give her
second name.

“I’ve had a lot of calls from elderly men,” said the 22-year-old
psychology student.

Without work or a pension, “most call upset because they’re struggling to
provide themselves with food, drink — or even a home”.

But vulnerable groups in Lebanon also include around one million Syrian
refugees who fled the seven-year war in their neighbouring homeland.

A 2014 World Health Organization report found that 41 percent of Syrian
youth in Lebanon have sometimes or often contemplated suicide.

– ‘Listen to them cry’ –

Fadi, a 37-year-old Syrian volunteer at the hotline, said he often feels
callers have never had anyone empathise with them.

He talks them through their problems, trying to highlight their
achievements, he said. Though “sometimes, they just need someone to listen to
them cry”.

Fadi is determined to speak out, especially after witnessing a crowd egg
on a suicidal Syrian man threatening to throw himself off a Beirut cliff in
April.

“They were eating sunflower seeds and watching the scene as if they were
watching a movie at the cinema,” he said.

Fadi gained the man’s trust by throwing him his coat, and managed to coax
him off the edge.

He is also trying to raise awareness individually. His gym coach, who
initially did not want to talk about the taboo topic, is now helping spread
the word. “Now he’s the one telling everybody: By the way, there’s a suicide
hotline in Lebanon. The number is 1564,” said Fadi.

Authorities say they are working on preventing suicides, including through
better access to mental healthcare.

“Ninety percent of persons who attempt suicide have a mental disorder that
can be treated,” said Kik, of the health ministry’s mental health programme
launched in 2014.

“We are working on making services more available, accessible and
affordable,” she said.

But Safieddine’s coping mechanism is still running. She has completed a
half-marathon and is working on improving her time.

“I run for freedom, I run for life, I run for myself, I run for my pain,
and I run for those like me,” she said.