ARE THERE MOMENTS in your life that you wanted to end your life? Do you still remem-
ber the causes? Academic failure, a heart-breaking break up, or ongoing conflicts with
parents? Is it a sudden thought? When the overwhelming waves of pains swallow you,
you feel suffocated and separated as if you are drowning, and then with a blank mind, you
think there is nothing in the world worth living for. Or is it a long term? Small pieces of
unhappiness pile up on the back, burdening you unconsciously; the consistent frustration
and disappointment exploit your emotions, leaving nothing but emptiness. Getting lost in
the race of searching meanings for life, you consider quitting the game.
If even for one moment a flashback came to you and overlapped with the scene
above, don’t feel bad about yourself because you are not alone. No matter what the cause
of the situation is, there are always people around the world thinking similarly with what
you do. Esther, a seventeen-year-old teenage girl from The Bell Jar, experiences the same
way (maybe worse) of feeling isolated, unsupported, and meaningless about life. The
difference is, her experiences last longer. Not a moment, not a day or two, but months.
When she makes her first suicide attempt, she hasn’t slept for twenty-one nights (Plath
147). Esther romanticizes the process of suicide as the following, “He said he would open
his veins in a warm bath. I thought it would be easy, lying in the tub and seeing the
redness flower from my wrists, flush after flush through the clear water, till I sank to sleep
under a surf gaudy as poppies” (Plath 147).
There are more. In the article “Teen Depression and Anxiety: Why the Kids Are
Not Alright,” the author, Schrobsdorff, examines several cases where teenagers today
attempted self-harm or suicide. When describing a girl called Faith-Ann’s first self-harm
experience as an eighth grader, the article goes, “with a metal clip from a pen in her
hand… she sliced into the soft skin near her ribs. There was blood--and a sense of deep
relief.” The stress 18-year-old Tommy has is described in the startling quote, “I'm calm on
the outside, but inside it's like a demon in your stomach trying to consume you”
(Schrobsdorff).
What Esther and the teens in the article experience is no longer normal sadness,
but depression as a mental disorder. Depression, according to Cruwys, displays not only
low-mood, but also social withdrawal, isolation, and disconnectedness (2). Social isola-
tion is also one of the factors of negative daily mood fluctuations, increasing relapse risks