SUICIDE THREATS - WHAT TO DO?

TRAINING SESSION: “I WILL COMMIT SUICIDE” – A THREAT

NOTE: THIS TRAINING IS BASED ON THE MOST COMMON EXPERIENCES AND KNOWLEDGE OF MOST COMMON CASES. SITUATIONS AND SOLUTIONS MAY DIFFER CASE TO CASE. EXPERT’s ADVISE IS OF PARAMOUNT IMPORTANCE.

 



Introduction to SIF (www.saveindianfamily.in)

·         Self Funded NGO, We help victim “Free of Cost”
·         Meetings in 22 Cities
·         Website
·         Helpline: SIF One 08882498498
·         Android App
·         Youtube channel

Previous Sessions:

                RTI
                Howto Handle CAW
                CrPC125 (maintenance)
                Activism
                And many others

Introduction:

Listing few disorders:
·         Narcissistic Personality Disorder
·         Borderline Personality Disorder
·         Dependent Personality Disorder
·         Paranoid Personality Disorder
·         Schizotypal Personality Disorder

Few Scenarios:

·         While Threatening (Recording)
·         If already attempted
·         If committed suicide

Legal:

Ø  IPC 309. Attempt to commit suicide.-- Whoever attempts to commit suicide and does any act towards the commission of such offence, shall be punished with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to one year 1[ or with fine, or with both.]
Ø  IPC 306. This abetment to suicide law is very selectively applied by police. When a husband commits suicide blaming torture by wife and in-laws, the police refuse to arrest the woman and her parents. However, if a wife commits suicide, the husband and in-laws go to prison for 6 months to 2 years and are presumed guilty until proven innocent. Is the life of a man cheap? Males are the disposable gender.
Ø  IPC 304B. Dowry Death

Background:

-          Thousands of men across India call SIF helplines every week. Half of them have faced threats of suicide from their wives from time to time, if they do not meet her unreasonable Demand’s.
-          These men are scared. These abusive wives refuse to come to a counselor or a psychiatrist. When these young men plead to the parents of women about their suicidal nature, parents do not take it seriously.
-          These men cannot run away from home or file for divorce, fearing that this may prompt her to commit suicide.
-          They suffer mental and physical abuse from possessive, controlling and suspicious wives. In fact, the society laughs at them as “Harassed Husbands” rather than helping the man and making arrangements for counseling of such women.
-          Now, this phenomenon is getting extended to relationships before marriage as well. Being obsessively possessive and controlling is not a sign of love.
-          In short, India is sitting on a ticking time bomb as the society refuses to recognize the issue of threats of suicide inside marriages or in relationships. The society just behaves as if such incidents are rare or wishes that this problem will go away on its own. Then, it recommends revenge on the man if the woman commits suicide.

Why do Wife’s do it?

Narcissistic Personality Disorder
1.       Estimated to affect 1-percent of the adult population
2.       Narcissism is a term commonly used to describe those who seemed more concerned with themselves than with others.
3.       Those with narcissistic personalities are often seen as arrogant, confident, and self-centered, but they do not have the exaggerated or grandiose view of their own abilities that characterizes narcissistic personality disorder

The DSM-IV identifies the following symptoms:

-          An exaggerated sense of one's own abilities and achievements
-          A constant need for attention, affirmation and praise
-          A belief that he or she is unique or "special" and should only associate with other people of the same status
-          Persistent fantasies about attaining success and power
-          Exploiting other people for personal gain
-          A sense of entitlement and expectation of special treatment
-          Feeling envious of others, or believing that others are envious of him or her
-          A lack of empathy for others
-          An official diagnosis can be made by a qualified mental health professional, and requires that the individual exhibit 5 of the 9 symptoms identified in the DSM-IV

Causes of Narcissistic Personality Disorder

While the exact cause is unknown, researchers have identified some factors that may contribute to the disorder. Childhood experiences such as parental overindulgence, excessive praise, unreliable parenting, and a lack of realistic responses are thought to contribute to narcissistic personality disorder.

Borderline Personality Disorder?

According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), borderline personality disorder is:
"a serious mental illness characterized by pervasive instability in moods, interpersonal relationships, self-image, and behavior. This instability often disrupts family and work life, long-term planning, and the individual's sense of self-identity."

Symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder
Individuals with borderline personality disorder:
-          Experience a pervasive pattern of unstable interpersonal relationships and have difficulties with moods and self-image. Impulsiveness is also extremely common.
-          Often have intense episodes of anxiety, depression and irritability lasting from a few hours to several days.
-          May direct anger outward in the form of physical aggression, but may also engage in self-destructive behaviors such as drug abuse, eating disorders or suicidal gestures. These behaviors are often intended to manipulate others.
-          Usually have poor self-identity that leads to overly intense relationships with others. These interactions are generally filled with conflict, and the individual with borderline personality will vacillate between idealizing other people and undervaluing them.
-          Tend to become angry and frustrated when other people fail to meet unrealistic expectations.

Paranoid (Suspicious) Personality Disorder

Individuals with paranoid personality disorder typically experience:
-          Chronic and pervasive distrust and suspicion of others.
-          Feelings that they are being lied to, deceived, or exploited by other people.
-          May believe that friends, family, and romantic partners are untrustworthy and unfaithful.
-          Outburst of anger in response to perceived deception.
-          Look for hidden meanings in gestures and conversations.

Schizotypal Personality Disorder

Individuals with schizotypal personality disorder typically experience:
-          Eccentric perceptions, thoughts, and behaviors.
-          "Magical thinking" including saying they can read minds or can foretell the future.
-          Major difficulties in forming relationships.
-          Severe social anxiety that does not diminish with time or familiarity.
-          May talk to themselves, ignore others, or react inappropriately.

Schizophrenia

Borderline personality or bi-polar disease
-          When someone in your life has borderline personality disorder, things can get out of sorts very quickly.
-          One out of every 10 people with BPD dies by their own hand. More, of course, make an attempt. The presence of other conditions like major depression, substance abuse, and eating disorders seems to magnify the likelihood of actual suicide.
-          What do you do, though, in situations like those above, when the suicide threats appear to be an attempt to scare you or make you do something you don't want to do? When this happens, your sympathy and concern may begin to dissolve into anger and resentment. People on the receiving end of these threats feel extremely guilty, confused, and worried.
-          Sometimes your family member will try to make you believe that you are responsible for their misery, and that you will be to blame if he kills himself.

What Not To Do

Don't fight. Don't get into an argument with your BP about whether he or she is serious about wanting to die-even if you're angry and feel like venting. He may attempt suicide simply to prove you wrong
Don't confront your family member and accuse her of manipulating you. Again, this may turn into a power struggle. If she is asking you to do something that is against your better judgment, follow your instincts. However, if the two of you are in a session with a mental health professional, it can be helpful to talk about how this behavior is making you feel.
Don't give in to threats. Be extremely cautious about relenting just to prove that you really care. You and your partner will not be happy in a relationship in which one of you stays because of emotional blackmail. In the long term, your loved one won't be happy in a relationship with someone who doesn't want to be with them. They need to get better before they're ready for a healthy relationship. It is likely that the same scenario will repeat itself again and again.

Seek help for yourself. If you have a history of complying with demands because you believed that suicide was imminent, get professional help for one or the both of you before the next crisis occurs.

Our Demands: 

1.       Government must bring checks and balances to all laws related to suicide, like abetment to suicide and dowry deaths.
2.       Government must make domestic violence law gender neutral and protect men from wives and girlfriends, who threaten suicide every now and then.
3.       Suicidal women must be forced to undergo counseling and treatment.
4.       All laws must be made gender neutral and both genders must be treated in a fair manner.
5.       The society must take steps to curb misandry. It is challenging, because it is too easy to blame and stereotype all men citing incidents of rape or other crimes against women. Such misandry will vitiate gender relations.
6.       It must be ensured that, men’s rights to liberty, dignity and basic human rights are not snatched away in the name of empowering women

http://legaljunction.blogspot.in/2011/10/suicide-threats-ground-for-divorce.html

Monday, October 10, 2011
Suicide Threats - A ground for Divorce under Hindu Marriage Act
Posted by Abhinav Shrivastava
Justices P Sathasivam and B S Chauhan
An interesting decision has come along recently by the Supreme Court of India in the case of Pankaj Mahajan v. Dimple @ Kajal Civil Appeal No. 8402 of 2011, case which was concerned with the issue of divorce. Interestingly, after this case, a person will be able to get a divorce decree if other spouse is threatening former of committing suicide. And, the same can be categorised under cruelty. In the instant case, wife-respondent was suffering from schizophrenia which husband-petitioner was not aware of. And, wife was suffering from that particular disease even before marriage, and she, after marriage, on several occasions had threatened her husband that she would commit suicide. Instead, she once tried to end her life but was eventually saved on the timely intervention of her husband. Husband left his parental home in the hope that his wife will abstain from becoming aggressive, but no fruitful result came out. He intimated the same to his mother-in-law and consequently filed a petitioner before the District Court of Amritsar which decreed in favour of husband. But, the order of the district court was reversed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court because of which the matter came before the Supreme Court under civil appeal.

Section 13, of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 can be read as – (Only Relevant Portion)

13. Divorce (1) Any marriage solemnised, whether before or after the commencement of this Act, may, on a petition presented by either the husband or the wife, be dissolved by a decree of divorce on the ground that the other party—

(i-a) has, after the solemnisation of the marriage, treated the petitioner with cruelty; or

Husband came to know about the mental condition of his wife only after one month of the marriage, and same was intimated to her father. Reports presented before the court made in clear that wife had undergone treatment but doctors have not certified her to be entirely mentally fit. Supreme Court refuted the reasoning of the High Court where high court had opined that mere mental illness cannot be considered as a sufficient ground for seeking divorce without appreciating the reports of the doctors. All the doctors who submitted their reports before the court called the diseased suffered by the respondent-wife to be incurable.

Reasoning of the Supreme Court while rejecting the opinion of the High Court can be read as follows –

“It is clear from the above that the respondent-wife was not of sound mind and she did not look after the household work rather she used to give threats to commit suicide. She did not even make food for the appellant-husband and he had to arrange the same from outside. Apart from this, she used to embarrass the appellant-husband before his landlord's family and because of her weird behaviour and threats to commit suicide, the appellant-husband was forced to leave the rented accommodation. Madan Lal, the landlord, PW-5 has also highlighted several instances when the respondent-wife used to quarrel with her husband and he had to face humiliation in front of others because of her behaviour. Inasmuch as PW-5 was living in the same house on the ground floor and the appellant-husband and the respondent-wife were living on the first floor, the said witness being the eye-witness to the cruelty meted out by the respondent-wife to the appellant-husband, as he had himself seen the behaviour and the activities of the respondent-wife including humiliation and threats of committing suicide, cannot be thrown out. Under those circumstances, the observation of the High Court that the statement of PW-5 is only hearsay is liable to be rejected.”

Supreme Court further stated that –

“It is well settled that giving repeated threats to commit suicide amounts to cruelty. When such a thing is repeated in the form of sign or gesture, no spouse can live peacefully. In the case on hand, the appellant-husband has placed adequate materials to show that the respondent-wife used to give repeated threats to commit suicide and once even tried to commit suicide by jumping from the terrace. Cruelty postulates a treatment of a spouse with such cruelty as to create reasonable apprehension in his mind that it would be harmful or injurious for him to live with the other party. The acts of the respondent-wife are of such quality or magnitude and consequence as to cause pain, agony and suffering to the appellant-husband which amounted to cruelty in matrimonial law.”

Divorce was consequently granted to the husband.

 

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:

QUESTION: My Wife giving me regular threats of committing suicide to me and my family....what to do in this kind of situation? Please help....as i'm going through a terrible mental situation.

REPLY: There is typically an issue behind those threats.  Try to find out the root cause.  She may also need to be taken to a psychiatrist for counseling and evaluation, as soon as possible. This could simply be a medical problem.

There are two ways to seek help by you in your presented facts before us:

One – She is suffering with border line personality and actually such BPD people 1 in 10 do commit suicide if not immediately helped.

A bench of Justices P Sathasivam and B S Chauhan said: "Giving repeated threats to commit suicide amounts to cruelty. When such a thing is repeated in the form of sign or gesture, no spouse can live peacefully."

Majority of the problems lie under your "One" above, a sort of borderline personality or bi-polar disease.  A proper evaluation by psychiatrist and efforts to treat such issue have two outcomes.  1. She has been cured and 2. She has not been cured.

If she has been cured, go celebrate and live happily ever after.  If she has not been cured, then you have medical evidence for such issue.  

Based on media reports and alleged suicide note of Jiah Khan, 22-year old Suraj Pancholi was arrested and sent to jail for committing the crime of abatement to suicide. We have to understand that such laws do not exist in other countries in the world. Is suicide a solution to break-ups or separation? Jiah Khan attempted suicide 8 months ago and nothing was done to ensure that she does not repeat it. It is absurd to assume that all human relations will remain everlasting in this age of modernity. Finally, women are portrayed as victims, and men as abusers.

Suraj Pancholi is not alone. Thousands of men across India call SIF helplines every week. Half of them have faced threats of suicide from their wives from time to time, if they do not meet her unreasonable demands.

These men are scared. These abusive wives refuse to come to a counselor or a psychiatrist. When these young men plead to the parents of women about their suicidal nature, parents do not take it seriously. These men cannot run away from home or file for divorce, fearing that this may prompt her to commit suicide. They suffer mental and physical abuse from possessive, controlling and suspicious wives. In fact, the society laughs at them as “Harassed Husbands” rather than helping the man and making arrangements for counseling of such women. Now, this phenomenon is getting extended to relationships before marriage as well. Being obsessively possessive and controlling is not a sign of love.

In short, India is sitting on a ticking time bomb as the society refuses to recognize the issue of threats of suicide inside marriages or in relationships. The society just behaves as if such incidents are rare or wishes that this problem will go away on its own. Then, it recommends revenge on the man if the woman commits suicide. Home Ministry (NCRB) data says, 24% of all suicides in India are due to Family Reasons and 3.4% due to failed love affairs