Are we running on empty?
Content warning: This piece touches on mental health crises and suicide
Beyond the haze from Indonesia’s Kalimantan fires that has blanketed Metro Manila since the “ber” months began this year, there seems to be a general, downcast gloom everywhere. Everyone seems to be on the verge of flu and fatigue.
Out of concern, I asked my brother why he hasn’t shaved and why he’s so irritable. He snapped at me and complained that his eyes are constantly itchy, tired, and that he’s experiencing cognitive overload. Physically, he says, he feels like a melting candle. And I realized he’s been saying this for the better part of a year.
The grim picture in numbers
The headlines are mostly about the school shootings, the sudden and utterly reactionary ban of Discord in the country, Pax Silica, Manchurian candidates, and the impeachment trial.
But more hushed, under the radar, are the self-harm cases and suicides—notably, jumping off buildings, a method tied to the urban skyline, and other means in the provinces where there are no high-rises to speak of, each just as underreported as the other.
Official mortality statistics from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) underscore the urgency of this reality: registered deaths due to intentional self-harm spiked by 57.3 percent during the first year of the pandemic, climbing from 2,810 in 2019 to 4,420 in 2020. Though numbers have since fluctuated, the trajectory remains concerning, with registered intentional self-harm deaths moving from 3,133 in 2023 up to 3,379 in 2024.
Long-term research from the UP Population Institute’s YAFS5 Study further reveals that suicide attempts among Filipino youth aged 15 to 24 have more than doubled between 2002 and 2021 (rising from 3.0 percent to 7.5 percent), highlighting that even fractional increases reflect irreplaceable human lives.
Living in a pressure cooker
I asked my colleague and friend Elaine Ferrer—a licensed psychologist and certified grief educator who also leads learning and development for the Psychological Association of the Philippines’ mental health and psychosocial support group—and she shared that she had just come off a hell week, where several of her clients were activated by deadlines and the pressure of living up to high expectations.
In our conversation, I pointed out to her that the Philippines has one of the longest Christmas buildups in the world, with all the trappings of consumerism maxed out well before December. She then said that she was surprised that the response to stress and hopelessness, for some, is doomsday prepping.
She’s also noticed a trend among her clients of worrying about El Niño and the prepper life, which strikes me as odd in a country where living paycheck to paycheck is already the norm. I told her that I feel like we’re living in a pressure cooker.
Has this always been like this? History offers a few parallels: a wave of jumpers after the 1918 to 1920 Spanish flu pandemic, and again during the Great Depression following the Wall Street crash of 1929. Archival records, even if contested as scandalmongering, point to America’s skyscraper boom at the time, which is partly why jumping entered the zeitgeist.
While the legend of bankers leaping from windows after the 1929 crash was largely magnified by press sensationalism, US suicide rates did peak during the Depression, reaching roughly 22.1 per 100,000 in 1932.
Moving forward (or backward) in the mental health conversation
I also told Ferrer that a dear friend told me that burdens are meant to be shared, but I wonder, in this collective atmosphere of doom and gloom, if burden-sharing might just break both backs.
So how do we know and discern?
Ferrer emphasizes that “kahit mukhang paulit-ulit na tayo sa mental health awareness, ‘yon pa rin talaga ang need natin dito.” But is the Philippines really moving forward with the mental health conversation? We have a long way to go.
I can’t believe that post-COVID-19, we still don’t get it. In church, during a presentation on youth and mental health given by a member angling to supplant pastors, he declared that we need God, and that mental health struggles are spiritual oppression. He was ready to show a video (apparently obtained from the police) of a child—likely a high schooler—caught on different public security cameras as she leaped to her death.
Luckily, the presentation was glitching. Churchgoers protested that it be stopped since children were filing into the hall from Sunday school, but the presenter wore a grotesque grin, gleeful at the prospect of shocking people into his rally call.
But isn’t it pure Pharisaic grandstanding to use a child’s death under the guise of “spiritual revival?”
People are not passive entries
One time I spoke with a human resources professional around my age, Gen X, for whom mental health is a topic that grates on her: an excuse, in her view, to abuse company policy, something malingering employees hide behind.
There are, indeed, a few instances where a visit to a mental health HMO provider gets used to skip work, or to stretch a sick leave into a vacation, so I totally get it. But management ranting about this, to me, is counterproductive.
People are not passive entries in a bottom-line figure. They are lives that power the whole machinery of enterprise, consumerism, and the Philippine economy.
What’s actually needed is a clear company policy on access, response, and boundaries, not finger-pointing that blurs the line between corporate governance and genuine employee support, and that opens the door to discrimination, unconscious bias, and unsubstantiated assumptions about bad behavior.
What happens after
I ask Ferrer: How can I be a better friend? How can I prevent this? How? Because after suicide comes survivor’s guilt.
She says, “Remember that it is not our fault. The situation is beyond our control. Survivor’s guilt usually comes from our need na sana may nagawa tayo, sana alam natin, etc. But then, remember, we also have our own lives to attend to.”
I also asked for helpful advice for those with suicidal ideation, besides the very important step of seeking professional help. “Pockets of rest,” Ferrer says. “’Yang news, current events na ‘yan, it’s too broad.” What she means is that a headline is too broad a lens, and letting it catastrophize the full picture only adds to how dire things feel. Do not be paralyzed by it.
“The goal is to have a sense of control over what we can, in the next five minutes. Grounding muna,” she states. Anchor ourselves in the now, acknowledge it with all our senses, breathe, and regulate. “Overwhelming kasi talaga.”
So how can we be better people for others? She says, “Wag na wag nating i-invalidate ang struggle nila. It is their experience, and it’s very personal. You’ll never know the weight of it. So tayo, support, alalay, kung kaya at kung meron, making sure tayo rin may capacity to help.”
And I agree with her completely. I think it’s best to also self-assess and be self-aware, especially when feelings are raw and fresh. So before being someone’s safe space, ask yourself: Are you in the right headspace to help? Are you okay enough to even offer help?
You too may be running on empty.
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