Two suicides

By most standards, the life led by the Filipino-Taiwanese family of Luis and Roxanne Hsieh wasn’t so bad. At least on the surface, it seems they led a comfortable, if not exactly prosperous, existence. Their eldest child, daughter Amanda, was in college at Ateneo; the two younger boys, Jeffrey, 13, and John, 12, were studying at the prestigious Xavier School.

They lived in a condominium in Greenhills and had a housemaid.

But things aren’t always what they seem on the surface. A family friend received a note from Roxanne a few mornings ago and, disturbed by its contents, called the building manager and asked him to join her in dropping by the Hsiehs’ unit. “They’re still asleep,” the housemaid said when the visitors inquired about the family, but when they opened the bedroom door, they found a grisly sight: the Hsieh couple were on their bed, their arms and legs bound together, while the two boys were in a separate bed. All of them were dead, with plastic bags tied over their heads. They found Amanda in similar straits in her bedroom.

Police speculated that Luis must have committed suicide after sedating his children and wife (sleeping pills were found scattered in the room) and suffocating them. The possibility was raised because the plastic bag over Luis’ head was loosely tied.

The letter sent to the friend-neighbor and others left near the maid’s room provided some clues. The family was bankrupt, it seems. The parents’ import business was failing and they had turned to money-lenders to tide them over, but this only made things worse. In one letter, the Hsiehs said they didn’t want their children to be burdened by their debt and so decided to take them along on their trip to the afterlife.

It is a sad and dismaying story all around.

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The Hsieh family’s “mass suicide” would have been but a news footnote had it not coincided with another high-profile death—that of Liam Madamba, 18, a student at the high-end British School Manila who, it is believed, jumped to his death from the top floor of a Makati parking building.

Friends, classmates and family said Liam had been “bullied” by his British teacher who accused him of plagiarizing a paragraph in his term paper. Reports say the Madamba family is contemplating filing charges against the teacher and will petition for a “hold departure” order to prevent the teacher from leaving the country.

For its part, the British School headmaster sent condolences to Liam’s family and said the school would be holding a forum for the families of students who may have been shaken and upset by Liam’s death.

There are actually scientific studies that support immediate and clear action in such a case. Often, the suicide of a child or teen triggers what’s been called “copycat” suicides, especially if the suicide victim had been popular or well-liked, and if media coverage of the deaths tended to romanticize or valorize their deaths.

In the case of the Hsiehs and of Liam, the question of motive, of the circumstances that drove them to take their own lives, needs to be clarified. It could very well be that the bankruptcy or the scolding was just the “triggering” event after a longstanding bout with depression or despair.

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If we are to take anything positive or constructive from these deaths, it may be that the tragedies, coming so close to each other, could teach us a thing or two about the act of suicide.

The World Health Organization estimates that about one million people die each year from suicide. Taking one’s own life is “a desperate attempt to escape suffering that has become unbearable,” says a health website, and those “not in the grips of suicidal depression and despair [may find it difficult] to understand what drives so many individuals to take their own lives.”

The best way to prevent suicide, say experts, is to recognize “warning signs” and know how to respond if you spot them. If you feel you cannot offer the necessary help, keep talking to the potential suicide, “show that you care,” and get a doctor or psychologist involved.

Among the “major warning signs”: talking about killing or harming oneself, talking or writing a lot about death or dying, and seeking possible tools or materials to be used in a suicide attempt, such as weapons and drugs.

As the suicide website stresses: “Take any suicidal talk or behavior seriously. It’s not just a warning sign that the person is thinking about suicide—it’s a cry for help.”

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Too often, the media tend to look on suicides, or suicide attempts, as comical, if not farcical.

How many TV news stories have we seen where an attempted suicide, usually a clearly unhinged person who climbs up a billboard, tower, or overpass, is shown taunting authorities and crowds while threatening to jump off—until the person is rescued by firemen or police?

Unfortunately, such scenes tend to perpetuate the common misconception that one has to be a homeless street person obviously high on drugs or stark raving mad, to attempt a suicide. But who would have known—or predicted—that a solid good citizen would not just take his own life, but also those of his wife and children? Who could have predicted that Liam, from a clearly prosperous family, would be so overcome by despair that he would jump off a parking building?

True, there are discernible signs of a potential suicide. But not everyone—especially the person’s loved ones and friends—can have the insight or objectivity to assess the person’s state of mind and heart. And this is why we should deepen our understanding and heighten our awareness about suicide and its warning signs, before it’s too late.