Copycat suicides led to calls for help last Jan

Updated on: Friday, February 25, 2011

January may have been the month when Mumbai was most worried in 2010. Data from a helpline shows that the most calls from those seeking mental or emotional help came in the first month of last year. This included callers seeking information on mental health, those making general inquiries, the suicidal and even blank or missed calls.

In January 2010, there were 1,430 calls, more than for any other month that year. Not surprising, as January 2010 will go down in history as the month during which several students across all age groups committed suicides in what was regarded as a copycat syndrome. “The frenzy over suicides that month resulted in a large number of people, both students and adults, calling for help,” said Hyacinth Pereira, senior vice-president of the Vandrevala Foundation, which compiled the data. The helpline’s data is for all callers, not just students.

Pereira said there is a spike in calls from students during exam season, which includes the HSC and SSC board exams of February and March, and university exams around April and May. While the helpline got 349 calls from those seeking information on mental health in January, the month with the second-highest number of callers was May with 275. May also saw a high number of callers with other concerns, making it the month that got the fourth-highest number of callers after January, February and March. Data for the first three months shows a high incidence of callers reaching out for help during that time of the year.

With respect to calls from the suicidal and others willing to inflict self-harm, the three months that had the most callers were January (46), March (39) and May (37). Pereira is proud to note that there is no instance of a suicidal caller actually taking the extreme step. They all get intense counselling from the professionals manning the helpline. “We follow up with those suffering from intense distress and depression for several weeks after the first phone call is made. We start out by calling the person every few hours, and later at least once a day,” said Pereira.

Of the calls related to exam stress, the most common cause of anxiety was the fear of failure. Many also called to say they had forgotten all that they had studied. Most of the callers who made the nearly 9,000 calls in 2010 were asking about mental health issues (4,181). The second-most number of callers sought information on mental health (2,153).

An interesting category included missed calls or made blank calls. “When we call them back, we find that they had wanted to speak to us, but hung up when somebody else entered the room. In some cases, people who used prepaid mobile phones and had little balance left to talk left missed calls in the hope that we would call them back,” Pereira said.

Not all of January’s callers had mental health disorders. “With the spotlight on suicides and mental health, people often wondered if there was something wrong with them even when they faced routine stress and anxiety, such as when they fought with their boss,” said Pereira.

Help’s A Call Away

Maharashtra State Board Helpline: 2789-3756; 8 am to 9 pm
Vandrevala Mental Health Helpline: 2570-6000; 24x7
Aasra: 2754-6669/ 2754-6667; 24x7
Blessings Careline: 3259-8000; 24x7
Samaritans Helpline: 3247-3267; 3 pm to 9 pm every day
Aastha Chrysalis: 98704-96238; 1 pm to 5 pm every day

Copycat suicides led to calls for help last Jan

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