Tokyo – For Koki Ozora, the precautionary bells began ringing in mid-summer. “In July, we got a lot of messages from other people saying they wanted to kill themselves,” he told CBS News. Ozora is the founder of an online network Consulting Service used primarily through women and young people.
Tokyo psychiatrist Chiyoko Uchida has noticed that many of her clients yield to the burdens of the coronavirus pandemic: “My patients’ lives have been turned upside down,” she told CBS News.
As before the pandemic, suicide remains the worst part of Japanese men, who are less likely to seek help. The men accounted for about two-thirds of the 2,158 self-inflicted deaths recorded here in October, according to statistics from the Ministry of Health last published. But while male suicides increased by more than 20% last month compared to October 2019, the rate among women increased by more than 80%, resulting in a frightening increase that began in August.
For immediate assistance if you are in a crisis in the United States, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. All calls are confidential. The crisis hotline at 1-800-985-5990 is also confidential, loose and available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. People can also send a TalkWithUs SMS to 66746 to contact a crisis counselor.
Young people, over-represented in part-time and non-regular jobs, have been disproportionately affected by layoffs and closures due to a pandemic in Japan.
In surveys conducted through Professor Michiko Ueda of Waseda University in Tokyo, one-third of women under the age of 40 reported task losses and significant discounts on their income, just 18% of their male counterparts.
Ozora, founder of Anata no Ibasho (Your Place), offers loose referral SMS, probably one of the reasons the organization’s clientele leans toward teens and 20-year-olds.
“The main explanation for why women lose their jobs and don’t know how to do it themselves and their families,” she told CBS News.
Even for those who have controlled to maintain their work, extended teleworking has had a serious effect on intellectual health, according to experts.
“While some other people are satisfied with the paintings in their home, there are a number of drawbacks,” said Uchida, a psychiatrist from Tokyo. “Not being in the workplace means not having around when you want to escape.
Working remotely also makes it more difficult to get the recommendation from supervisors, he added. “Good or bad, comments about your paintings can be a source of self-esteem. “
Whether or not the pandemic is linked, a wave of celebrity suicides this year has exacerbated the rise in self-inflicted deaths among women, according to Professor Ueda. His studies show that the day celebrity suicides appear in the news, self-inflicted deaths 6%, effect that persists for days.
Ozora, 21, a sociology student at Tokyo’s Keio University elite, presented her texting service in March, is a topic he knows, as he survived his own suicide attempt through the intervention of a high-level schoolteacher.
Aware that the call for recommendations peaks when the maximum number of hotlines is closed, late at night, Ozora has recruited a network of Japanese volunteers living abroad, who can respond to messages all night, Japan time.
As of November 3, its service had sent more than 300,000 messages from some 26,000 consumers in Japan.
“There are several hotlines like ours, but the need is enormous,” he said. “There are too many calls to take. “
Due to its traditional self-inflicted mortality rate, Japan has developed an exceptionally fast, accurate and granular formula for tracking suicides. Monthly figures are published in a few weeks, making Japan’s first incredibly bleak knowledge a canary imaginable in the coal mine for other countries, experts warn here.
While draconian COVID blockades have been blamed for the accumulation of suicidal minds in other countries, Japan’s antivirus restrictions have been lenient, and the government has instead relied on voluntary compliance, without sanctions.
“The message I would take,” Ueda said, is “if the effect of the pandemic is much milder and we still see this massive effect on suicides, it can happen anywhere. “