Outraged.

A friend's family member killed herself lately. Three days ago, a fifteen year-old ex-neighbour jumped off the apartment I used to live in. Two days ago, a girl on an MRT approached me to tell me she had planned her suicide, and she had multiple cuts all over her wrists. When I was twelve, I saw someone I knew hold a knife to her neck, threatening to end her life right there and then.

September 22- September 29 is Suicide Awareness Week. And today, the Dean of Medicine invited some people to give us medical students a lecture about Suicide, so we could be better equipped to help our future patients.

My heart was heavy when I listened to the lecture, and it sank rock bottom when I saw the lecture theatre half-filled, and only half of that half was paying attention. Where was everybody else?

"Oh, I decided to sleep in."

"I was studying in the library."

"I'm sure it's not that important right?"

What did we all say during our interviews? Were we lying when we said we wanted to be doctors because we wanted to help people?

Didn't we say we wanted to help people? Didn't we?

At the next lecture an hour later, the entire lecture theatre was packed. I don't see how a lecture on meta-analyses of data can be more or less important than one on how to spot symptoms of depression, how to help someone suicidal and how to turn people's lives around.

People die not because they want to, they die because nobody intervened. People who need help never do because they feel so ashamed. A Taste of Rainbow is just about that- it's a story about finding your own mouth, about being brave to seek help, cry out, because it's okay not to be okay. Nobody is, really. It's everybody's business to prevent suicide- if only somebody, anybody intervened.

The top 3 causes of death in people aged 15 to 35 years include Suicide. In Singapore, there is 1 suicide a day. The trend has risen steeply in recent years. It's caused by depression. More men resort to it.

We said we wanted to become doctors to help people. But it seems to me now we only want to help if it comes with a white coat, an air of nobility and pompous, sterilised surgical tools. Listening to a lecture on suicide? Too simple.

A girl severely entangled in depression, anorexia and hard-core bulimia told me recently her general practitioner hardly batted an eyelid when she saw him after dramatic weight loss. He never suspected pain, depression, a black soul, and never offered to refer her to a counsellor or a psychiatrist. He ordered multiple blood tests. Period.

We just don't care, do we.

"I'm sure it's not that important right? It's not like it's going to be tested."

Somedays why do I feel like I don't belong.