#SuicidePrevention & South Asian Toxicity
My feed this week has been filled with #suicideprevention propaganda about checking on friends, seeking mental health, self care and so on.
Each post is a pinprick. Each a reminder of my brother’s untimely passing.
In the months following his death, I got hundreds of condolence emails, texts, DMs. Hundreds of “he’s in peace”. I was invited to join grief support groups.
What was rarely discussed is the toxicity of desi culture — the ‘log kya kahenge’ (what will people say), the hiding of so-called dirty laundry, ignoring early signs, being complicit in causing harm. The ways in which fathers shame and bully their boys for being ‘not enough’. Not athletic enough, not entrepreneurial enough, never ‘man’ enough. The ways in which our mothers are gaslit and kept from seeking help. The culture of verbal, physical, psychological violence — all of it rationalized by “someone else has it worse”. All of it being exacerbated by being third-culture kids, navigating the world of our parents and the white supremacy of life in America.
Our childhood was marked by incessant shaming and the kind of physical violence for which social services might be called, had we lived in the Western world.
By the time we immigrated to the United States, my 10 year old brother had already lived in 3 countries and a half a dozen homes. There were years of being raised by a single mom, and years where we fearfully co-existed as a family of 4.
Our childhood was marked by incessant shaming and the kind of physical violence for which social services might be called, had we lived in the Western world.
There were few, if any, interventions from family who were aware of what was happening in our houses. In fact, despite the knowledge of violence, as children we were mocked, judged, and treated like second-class citizens by our aunts.
Any desire for changed parental behavior was met with “you’re better off than so many”, and a“we had at it worse” rhetoric. It took a decade of putting thousands of miles between my parents and I, along with therapy, to make sense of it all. The distance gave me a chance to create family and community. Still, I was in my early 30’s when I could confidently tell my parents that their behavior was not okay, and to draw some healthy boundaries.
My sibling was less lucky.
Months after his death, I learned that he was molested by older boys at the age of 8 when we lived in Qatar — something my parents were aware of, and did nothing about. They knew he was cutting himself throughout his mid-teens into his 20’s, and did nothing. Throughout his 20’s, he self medicated with alcohol and later with marijuana (which was legal in CO) — no one took action. When he hit parked cars while driving drunk, they chastised him but took no action.
In retrospective, the acknowledgment of his challenges might’ve make those challenges real and hence require action. It certainly would’ve required giving up the ‘log kya kahenge’ mentality, the charade of our lives built on toxic desi masculinity, patriarchy. It would’ve required asking for helping, taking action, wrestling with the possibility of failure. It would’ve required taking responsibility — none of which a real possibility for our father.
Last year, when he spent a week in the hospital from one of many suicide attempts that would mark the end of his life — our father told his employers that a relative was sick and took time off to be with him, because ‘log kya kahenge’.
In the year preceding his death, there were innumerable consultations with priests in India, no-meat diets, daily prayer. After his death, more time was spent finding a Hindu-priest to conduct services, with even more ‘pujas’ in the months that followed — none of which was ever desired by my brother who was deeply non-religious.
In the end, we took him to his favorite place and remembered who he was was — a sweet boy who struggled to make friends easily, who wanted consistency, love, attention and validation of his parents. He wanted a sense of ‘family’, of ‘community’ — something we lacked as children. At 19, his greatest dream was getting married and raising children, being a forever-educator, a home with a white picket fence, being in nature, and family. All things I wish we had seen him enjoy.
My wish today is for us to give up passive-aggressive check-ins on people.
Love your people, hold them, create community with and for them. Don’t brush away their childhood/adulthood traumas. Build cultural competency so you can be a reliable ally. We don’t need to lose people over our own inability to move past ‘log kya kahenge’.
