A Teenage Suicide in Singapore

     On 15th May 2011, Krystal Mizoguchi was found dead beside an HDB block in Ang Mo Kio. The cause of death was suicide. She was only 18 years old. Born to Japanese and Singapore parents, she came from a single parent household when her parents  divorced when she was very young. Obviously teen suicides in Singapore are again on the rise, and she had kept a blog where she had described herself as a typical teenager, full of angst. When I reading her blog, in hindsight, I felt, that apart from a psychiatrist, I could not distinguish whether she was just venting her daily frustrations or really reaching over a 'tipping point'.

     I managed to read the last few entries of her blog, and it spelled out how she felt she was a loser, and called her results a 'failure'. She did poorly for her PLSE (Primary School Leaving Examinations), messed up her 'O' levels and 'xxxked up' (her words) for her 'A' levels. As such, she missed the cutoff for her desired course in the Polytechnic and  making it into the National University of Singapore. She cited her poor results from school as her major failure in life. 

    The news report also stated she had some 'relationship problems' probably with her boyfriend or family but did not elaborate. 

     As a father of two teenage boys, I can attest that the education system in Singapore does indeed stress every child academically. The boys have to juggle with school work, CCA and social time, plus family outings on the weekends plus many distractions from their time nowadays such as the social media, Facebook, Twitter, MSN, Skype and what not. Its a far more complex a life they lead than what I or my peers lived through when we were teens in the 70s. We only had colour TV, a Macdonalds (1 only in Singapore), movies and simple plain fun in 1976-1980. Life was uncomplicated and unfettered then.  

     However, seeing this sad story above must remind me and all the readers here, that althought academic results  are important, the aim of getting a degree is also important, having a sense of self-worth, a stable and supportive family, friends one can confide in, religion, and an optimistic outlook are MOST IMPORTANT. There are several non-profit organisations one can turn to if one is deeply troubled like Samaritans of Singapore with 24 helplines but the issue of face in our Asian society is always our major stumbling block. Who wants to admit they screwed up, or messed things to gigantic proportions ? But bear in mind, we all are humans, and humans make mistakes.  

     "It takes a village to raise a child" - African proverb ; still so relevant today.

    In Krystal's case, her failure to enter the local University caused her to spiral to depression,plus (possibly) parental neglect and relationship problems may have resulted in her taking this drastic action.  It will be go down as another sad statistic in our increasingly complex and stressful world we now live in.  What a waste.