TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Suicide prevention campaigner found hanging in her room
On the international day to prevent suicide in September last year, DN, 25, posted a “Twibbon” to commemorate the day
Change Size
On the international day to prevent suicide in September last year, DN, 25, posted a “Twibbon” to commemorate the day.
“Do you want to #worktogether to #preventsuicide? Join our movement for World Suicide Prevention Day 2018!” DN wrote.
On March 16 this year, she reposted her own message from six years ago in 2013: “Whatever happens to you, stay positive and keep your spirit up!” she said.
Her social media posts showed that she had been into the issue for years, perhaps as a reminder to herself. But on June 17, her friend went to her room in a boarding house and found her hanging from the ceiling. The police and a medical team ruled her death as a suicide.
DN was a graduate student at Sebelas Maret University (UNS) in Surakarta, Central Java.
DN’s friend, Sri Rahayu, was the one who found her in the boarding house in Kampung Gendingan, Jebres. The day before, Sri was with DN in the room until the middle of the night. But Sri said DN did not say much that night.
The following morning, Sri received a chat message from DN, who asked her to come to her place. But Sri did not reply because she had a class. After class, she went to DN’s room, finding that the door was unlocked. When she opened it, she saw DN hanging from the ceiling.
“I was screaming for help and people came. I was really shocked,” said Sri.
Later the police and medical center personnel from UNS and the Indonesian Red Cross brought her body down.
The police said the early investigation revealed that DN had been a psychiatric patient at Hermina Solo Hospital for about a year.
“We checked with several witnesses and have ruled that this was a suicide,” Jebres Police chief Comr. Juliana Bangun said Wednesday.
Juliana said DN, who hailed from West Kalimantan, had some family problems.
Her friend Sri said DN sometimes said she felt she was the “brainless” one compared to her sister. In general, she did not tell Sri much. “She only told me that she had been seeing a psychiatrist and she rarely went home to Kalimantan because she felt she did not belong with her family.
“She did not tell me the complete story and I also did not push her to tell me more,” Sri said.
Putri, 26, DN’s classmate on the master’s degree program at UNS, said she often saw DN alone. “On campus, she was never seen with a group of friends. She tended to be alone and usually sat on the bench near the classroom. But she was friendly, she often said ‘hi’ to her friends,” Putri said.
The founder of Into The Light Suicide Prevention Community, Benny Prawira, said once a person had suicidal thoughts, it would be difficult to predict whether it would happen or when. Even though they looked fine on any given day, they could have a trigger and decide to kill themselves in seconds.
“We know the signs [of a suicidal person]. But when they will do it, it’s hard to know. The idea and the action could happen in a matter of seconds,” he said.
His organization, he said, actively campaigned for suicide prevention but it did not handle individual cases. It also provided guidelines on how to deal with suicidal people. “We have to care about them. If we hear our friend begin to talk about death and show some changes, such as from being an exuberant person to closed and quiet, we have to talk to them. They need friends to talk to,” Benny said.
Benny said there were many cases in which people with suicidal thoughts sought support and it did help them stop the thoughts.
A few days after DN’s death, her friends living in the same boarding house decided to move out because they were scared. Sri, who also lived there, said she could not sleep, especially because she was the last one to talk to DN.
Sunarti, 63, the caretaker of the boarding house, said she could not do anything. She told the house’s owner and they could only accept the situation. “It will be a long time until we can all forget about this suicide,” Sunarti said.
