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  • When you call a suicide helpline in Japan

  • You may have to dial that number 30 or 40 times

  • Because the lines are so busy.

  • A lot of people; have a lot of problems

  • But nobody to talk to

  • Nobody to listen

  • And they say please God,

  • Somebody answer the phone

  • I dream of a war.

  • A war on suicide,

  • But I don't even know;

  • Who is the enemy?

  • Who is it? What is it?

  • That's killing so many of us?

  • 1 million people in the world every year.

  • 30,000 lives lost in Japan alone.

  • I don't know, what I'm doing,

  • I just know, I have to do something.

  • In Japan, nobody dares to talk about the causes of suicide

  • or how to fight them.

  • But books teaching you how to kill yourself,

  • Sell over a million copies.

  • What if 10,000 lives could be saved in Japan?

  • Not by miracles but by ideas, by honesty?

  • Would anybody dare to listen?

  • If death, is darkness,

  • This is about life:

  • This is about trying to take back life;

  • From the jaws of death.

  • This is about choosing hope over despair,

  • Even when you are desperately hanging on by your fingernails

  • 300,000 Japanese people have killed themselves in the last 10 years

  • That's around the population of Iceland.

  • The suicide rate in Japan is twice that of America.

  • 3 times that of Thailand.

  • 9 times higher than Greece.

  • 12 times higher the Philippines.

  • Is that something acceptable?

  • Or is it time we start to fight back?

  • Suicide virus

  • One year driving around Tokyo

  • Asking so many people,

  • The same question, again and again.

  • The suicide rate is high in Japan still  

  • To be honest I don't know the real reason

  • But the fact is that killing ourselves is always in the back of minds

  • We see everyday in the newspaper in the media

  • Some people killing themselves

  • Including famous and successful people

  • Like politicians and business people

  • When we face a serious problem

  • We have to make some certain choices

  • One the ultimate choices that we may make

  • Is killing ourselves

  • One of the features of suicide in Japan

  • is the weakness of people to suggestion.

  • Look at how often Japanese people try to find others to die with.

  • Others who share the same despair.

  • So they will search online to find each other,

  • and they make plans to die together.

  • There are a lot of Japanese who do this.

  • The feeling behind this behavior is that

  • it seems more reassuring and safe to be with others.

  • Even though everybody is going to die.

  • Why are we Japanese so vulnerable to the power of suggestion?

  • There are no Samurai left in Japan

  • There are no Kamikaze pilots either

  • All that remains is a feeling

  • That suicide can be beautiful

  • The suicidal tendency amongst Japanese authors has been extremely high

  • If you just list them

  • Going through the decades

  • There are many who took their lives

  • And the pattern is totally out of shape with the rest of the world

  • There is nowhere else where the suicide of novelists is so prevalent

  • What makes a suicide hotspot become a famous location for suicide?

  • In the case of the Tojimbo cliffs, there was the local author Jun Takami.

  • He wrote a book "From the edge of death".

  • Death is always a best seller and it made here a tourist attraction.

  • For Cape Ashizuri, there's the author Torahiko Tamiya.

  • His novel was also made into a movie.

  • It made the Cape a popular spot for suicide.

  • Yes I was the person that think suicide is a kind of beautiful thing

  • Before having the experience that my friend has committed suicide

  • Suicide was something unrealistic

  • That's why I could easily believe that suicide is something that is beautiful

  • What Mishima did in real life

  • Was not so beautiful

  • How he killed himself in real life

  • Is so different from how he

  • Wrote in his novels right

  • In his novels, killing himself is so beautiful

  • It's such a gorgeous moment that what he described in his novels

  • His suicide should not have happened

  • I was broken by it

  • I was really really unhappy with this suicide

  • And its still with me today

  • It is an unbearable event

  • And when I say that it should not have happened

  • I mean that those of us who knew

  • He had suicidal tendencies

  • And should have found a way to enable him to continue to live

  • Talking about the book publication

  • I was stunned to find

  • How to kill yourself

  • In which how to tie your hanging ropes,

  • how to make it, all the details

  • I think its quite natural to have such a manual of how to kill yourself

  • Because, if I decide to kill myself

  • I don't want it to take so much time until I totally die

  • Because I don't want to be suffering from pain

  • It was a like a teenager's room

  • And, unusually for Japan he had a bunk bed

  • He was half naked, wearing pyjama bottoms

  • On the bed with his back facing me

  • His back looked kind of pink

  • But he looked like he was asleep

  • And, there was a piece of paper on his back

  • And I didn't really pay attention to it

  • You know, for some reason I felt like

  • I should wake him up and see what's going on

  • And just as I was about to do that, the detective said

  • "Hey, STOP, Move back. Do not touch that kid"

  • And when I looked at his back written on the paper was

  • "Do not touch, fear of electrocution"

  • And, looking from the side, you could see that

  • He had taken wires and plugged into the sockets

  • And taped them to his chest

  • And had electrocuted himself

  • There was a kind of slightly unpleasant acrid smell

  • I guess it smelled a little like burnt bacon,

  • I don't know how to describe it.

  • The detective showed me a copy of the book

  • That had been marked with a fusen which is like a post-it in English

  • At the section for electrocuting yourself

  • The detective said, you know

  • I'd like you to write about this,

  • Because this book is really a horrid thing

  • Parents should know,

  • if they see their kids with this book

  • That they may seriously be considering suicide

  • And that they should talk to their children

  • And explain to them that suicide is never a very good answer

  • And I agreed with him

  • Last year I performed funeral ceremonies for about 80 suicide victims.

  • I talked with each family one by one.

  • Almost all of them knew about this book.

  • Whether they had read it or not, they knew about it.

  • I've talked with several hundred people who've told me that they want to die.

  • They say that life is so hard that they cannot bear to keep living.

  • Almost every one of them knew of that book.

  • I'm sure there must be some kind of influence coming from it.

  • It whispers in your ear: kill yourself

  • Are you tired, are you overworked?

  • Are you burdened with problems?

  • Wouldn't it be nice to go to sleep

  • And never wake up again?

  • That's kind of how one of the chapters runs

  • It makes suicide seem like an appealing solution

  • And by rating the levels of impact

  • And the lethality, the amount of pain involved

  • It appeals to different kinds of various people

  • How do you want to kill yourself?

  • Why do you want to kill yourself?

  • Do you want to kill yourself and cause your family great distress?

  • Well then jump in front of a train because

  • The train companies are then going to make your family pay huge damages

  • The problems with most people that kill themselves

  • Is very short sighted

  • Or there is some part of their brain that thinks

  • That they are going to be around to enjoy the funeral

  • Or the whole commotion that is created by their own death

  • Or that they will know how much they were loved

  • Or that their girlfriend will realize that they loved them

  • But when you're dead

  • You are not around to do that

  • Unless you believe in ghosts

  • Even then, what do you do after that

  • It's not like you can come back and reclaim your body

  • I think media, particularly TV stations

  • Why they are reporting the specific names of the victim

  • And the way how they killed themselves

  • These things are just intriguing somebody who wanted to kill themselves

  • who wanted to kill themselves

  • They love news stories like this

  • Somebody goes in front of the train

  • They are hit by the train

  • Their body flies in the air off the track

  • Into the convenience store window

  • Injuring three people reading magazines inside

  • That is sensational, people enjoy that

  • But if you want to do something to stop train suicide

  • That is not interesting

  • We are not interested in that at all

  • When a suicide story is reported by the mass media,

  • there are copy-cat suicides in the following days. This happens in every country.

  • But in Japan, the scale is different.

  • Its 100 or 1,000 people who die.

  • This is due to the Japanese mentality.

  • Whether you think it's good or bad,

  • we Japanese often imitate the person next to us.

  • They regard suicide as the way

  • To entertain audiences

  • Dramatized scenes of people hanging themselves

  • or jumping off buildings are very common on Japanese TV.

  • This makes suicide look so easy when people visualize hanging or jumping.

  • But in reality, people wet themselves, foam at the mouth and tears flow uncontrollably.

  • The media never bothers to show this very ugly side of hanging.

  • They never show the horrific physical damage.

  • Suicide manuals

  • And all the countless suicide websites

  • Will all tell you that Aokigahara Forest

  • Is the most beautiful place on earth in which to die

  • Now I must admit it is a truly beautiful place

  • But not to die in

  • Because your body will be left undiscovered for several months

  • Be eaten by all the little forest animals

  • And become the happy home for a wide variety of insect life

  • Until eventually you will be carried out in a black plastic bag

  • By tired municipal workers earning 10 dollars an hour

  • But there is something even worse

  • The human scavengers who'll come to look for you

  • Treasure hunting,

  • They are not looking for gold, or silver

  • They are looking for a rope, razor blades, shoes, wallets

  • Or they are looking for the Jackpot

  • They are looking for a hanging body

  • You put that hanging body on Youtube

  • You'll get a million people viewing it,

  • Downloading it

  • You get TV shows, serious news shows

  • Coming here, looking for bodies

  • Viewing corpses, skeletons from every angle

  • You've got movies coming here

  • Talking about ghosts, spirits, it's haunted

  • All trying to make money

  • All trying to use here as entertainment, a place of tragedy

  • And what happens is that

  • More and more people will come here

  • More and more people will kill themselves

  • It's already the number one suicide spot in the world

  • Stop advertising it, mass-marketing it to make money

  • Why not try and do something about suicide

  • Rather than promoting it

  • The Economy

  • You've lost your job

  • You've been cut in all of the employment cutting that is going on

  • But you still have a mortgage of twenty years left to pay

  • You've got children's education fees to pay

  • What do you do?

  • Well you go and get the solution is here, It's very easy

  • You get all your debts are paid

  • Your mortgage repayments are finished

  • And your children will have a great education

  • And you'll get may be 300,000 Dollars or so

  • And all you have to give, is your life

  • People would come, sign a life insurance contract

  • And go straight out, and kill themselves under the nearest train

  • They said ok, well that can't happen, That's a little bit ridiculous

  • But we will put a 1-year exemption period on this

  • So, you sign a contract

  • And you must wait one year before killing yourself to get the money

  • Well that is still a very very good deal

  • for desperate people

  • So, the suicide rate spiked on the thirteenth month

  • The insurance companies said Ok, well what if we had two years of exemption

  • So you sign a contract,

  • And you can't kill yourself for two years

  • The twenty-fifth month

  • Why is it that life insurance companies pay out on suicide

  • Stop paying people to kill themselves

  • Stop incentivizing people to die and leave their families alone

  • Which families would say I'll take the money. I'll lose the husband

  • One the things I really admire about Japan and the Japanese

  • Is this deep sense of personal responsibility

  • Especially as it relates to debt and money

  • And one of the unfortunate things about Japan and the Japanese

  • Is that, a way of showing responsibility is to kill yourself

  • It shows sincerity that you really are sorry

  • Regarding debt problems,

  • the stress of holding many different loans is a huge factor in suicide.

  • When people first encounter money troubles,

  • they will borrow from family and friends.

  • But if they still can't find a job or a source of stable income,

  • they are forced to try to borrow from family and friends again.

  • But when this situation goes on and on

  • the family will eventually say "no more, that's enough".

  • When you're desperate for money to survive,

  • the easiest way to get cash is from consumer finance.

  • Consumer finance in Japan has always had a little bit of a reputational problem.

  • It's a very difficult industry to regulate

  • Because all you need are big bag of cash

  • and many desperate people to be able to charge them very high interest rates

  • In fact, it's a little bit difficult to distinguish in Japan

  • sometimes the difference between consumer finance and loan sharking

  • Despite the support of big banks and glossy TV commercials

  • Some very old style collection methods have been used in recent years

  • Why not sell your eyeballs to eye banks?

  • Why not sell your kidneys for transplant use?

  • So this is exactly saying

  • Why not kill yourself and get the insurance payout

  • Money as a fund for repayment of a loan

  • In 2005 the government noticed a very disturbing trend

  • 5000 people had killed themselves

  • And life insurance policies were paid not to their families

  • But to consumer finance companies

  • Consumer finances companies were routinely taking out

  • Life-insurance policies on borrowers

  • They never bothered to tell them

  • And a suicide was a win for a consumer finance company

  • Consumer loan company people

  • Visit not only to the debtors,

  • But also their family members or relatives or their offices

  • So, this gives us a very big pressure

  • For them to select the last way to commit suicide

  • We have got to control the consumer finance companies

  • We are going to reduce the interest rates

  • We are going to crack down on the behavior of companies

  • And everybody said, this is great

  • The government is finally doing something positive

  • But there was one big winner from this

  • And unfortunately that was organized crime

  • People who can not get money from legitimate sources

  • Will simply go to shadier sources

  • And the shadier sources will be better and more vicious about collecting their money

  • At about 5pm your own work is almost finished.

  • 5:30pm is the official going home time.

  • But when you look around, everybody is still working.

  • It seems like they all still have many things to do.

  • Your boss looks like he is still working so hard.

  • In this situation what many Japanese people do is called peer-pressure overtime.

  • You don't actually have any work left to do,

  • but your colleagues don't look like they are leaving any time soon.

  • It's just not that kind of "going home" atmosphere.

  • So you wind up staying working along with them.

  • Of course companies officially say that you should go home earlier.

  • They don't want you dying from overwork etc.

  • They say spend more time with your family.

  • All these things are said as the official line.

  • But if you naïve enough to take this official line as the truth

  • if you think well its 5.30pm, time for me to go home now

  • later, behind your back

  • people will complain that you are always the first out the door.

  • "He just doesn't get the way we work here."

  • Nobody kills themselves in a right state of mind

  • Nobody calmly says:

  • you know what I think that's enough now

  • I think it's time to kill myself, I have enough of life

  • It is always an element of mental illness

  • It is always an element of depression

  • That forces people to do that

  • two thirds of all depression

  • Come from a trigger, from a pressure

  • From: I can't get enough sleep

  • I am being overworked

  • I am being bullied by my boss

  • I am being forced to work these terrible long hours

  • I am being given impossible goals that I can't do

  • I am an inferior person

  • I am a failure in the company

  • I just want to get out

  • I can't take it anymore

  • I just can't take it anymore

  • Again this hierarchical male chauvinistic society

  • That's killing them, and pressing them

  • For example having to take time off due to mental pressure

  • is seen as a poor excuse for missing work.

  • Especially by middle-aged and older workers.

  • Stressed employees are seen to have a weak personality.

  • They are branded as lacking in effort.

  • That's the reality of the work place in Japan.

  • A Japanese taxi driver will never try to cheat you.

  • By taking you the long way to a destination.

  • He goes the wrong way because

  • He just doesn't know where he is going.

  • He's probably working a 30 hour shift.

  • And is living a life he never expected. Or wanted.

  • Several of my friends, my current taxi driving colleagues,

  • used to have good jobs as company managers.

  • But their companies went bust due to the recession.

  • Since most of them have only limited skills

  • and also considering their advanced age,

  • other companies didn't want to hire them.

  • They couldn't even get a job at a convenience store.

  • So they end up in taxi driving as there are no age limits here.

  • You just need to be able to read maps and drive.

  • The key point for elderly people and also for young people is that

  • they just can't find what they want to do with their lives.

  • These days, people can no longer follow their dreams.

  • People can't find any sense of their own worth.

  • What's the reason I'm here?

  • They desperately need to find that reason.

  • Demographics

  • Exam pressure is quite big in Japan.

  • Recently parents think of education as an investment.

  • So for example with entrance exams,

  • parents also have to look good.

  • They have to take interviews.

  • They also have to do their own preparations.

  • So it's natural, that when you are investing so much of your own time and money

  • you seriously want your child to get results.

  • Exam pressure comes directly from parents to children.

  • I know if I don't get into the right school, high school, I am not going to have a chance

  • If I don't get into the right university, I don't have a chance

  • And in University, the suicide rates are really really high in Japan

  • People failing exams, people jumping off the buildings

  • It really doesn't happen on the same level anywhere else

  • Related to suicide, bullying is a big issue

  • In particular talking about youth suicide

  • And there is a big fight between groups and individuals

  • A girl last year killed herself, she was 8 years of age

  • She was being bullied in school

  • The bullies had written all over her school books

  • "Shi-ne" which means "die"

  • The school ignored the complains from her parents

  • They said she wrote that on her books herself

  • She hung herself in her bedroom with her towel

  • And only afterwards, the school comes out with an apology

  • It's always too late in the case of bullying

  • Talking about my experience in elementary school days

  • My teacher led the bullying to me

  • I was a kind of unique student

  • From the perspective of character and conduct

  • The teacher did not like that, and started bullying

  • And other students followed

  • For people who have unique way of thinking or unique behavior

  • Japanese schools are a difficult place to live

  • In our hospital, there is an emergency room

  • And I find there are many cases of so called "wrist cuts"

  • They are usually young girls or young women

  • And they cut their own wrist with knives or razors

  • I was a victim of domestic violence from my husband.

  • I entered a domestic violence protection center.

  • But I felt they treated me very coldly.

  • So then I contacted the police for help.

  • But of course the police didn't do anything for me.

  • I found these public institutions to be so cold.

  • They didn't do anything to help me.

  • There was a case of a woman in her thirties about which I'm still deeply-distressed.

  • She was a non-regular worker.

  • This means she worked as a temporary office worker.

  • When she lost her job, at the same time

  • she had to leave the company dormitory too.

  • She returned to her family house.

  • But she didn't get along with her parents.

  • When Japanese women are over thirty,

  • they are often pressured by parents to get married.

  • How much longer will you be living with us?

  • After this she didn't feel she had a home.

  • She felt so unwelcome in her parent's house.

  • Even though she wanted to go back to work,

  • it's hard to find a job these days.

  • She started to get depressed.

  • and started to withdraw from society.

  • She found it increasingly hard to leave her bedroom.

  • She suffered domestic violence from her boyfriend.

  • She began to lose her faith in humanity.

  • Finally, she chose to hang herself at her parent's house.

  • She chose to kill herself in her parent's bedroom.

  • This was a clear message to them:

  • "I was in agony and you did nothing for me."

  • I went to the scene during the on-site police investigation.

  • We unwound the rope from around her neck and put her body into the coffin.

  • When it came to the time for her cremation,

  • I tried to put some flowers in the coffin.

  • I remember this moment clearly even now.

  • The woman had died from suffocation by choking.

  • Her tongue came out like when we're running and can't breathe.

  • In this way her tongue was sticking out.

  • Her face was very contorted.

  • So when we were closing down the coffin lid.

  • I said let's put some flowers inside.

  • But her mother said I'm sorry but I can't bear to show that face anymore.

  • There's no need for any flowers.

  • One third of all suicide victims in Japan are over 60

  • But nobody really talks much about elderly suicide

  • They are just old, tired of life

  • What's to talk about?

  • Challenges after retirement

  • Number 1: no place to go everyday

  • Number 2: no identity in society

  • Number 3: No hobbies

  • Number 4: No human networks

  • And Number 5: no idea what I should do

  • I provide medical services in a small community.

  • It's in a very rural and remote place.

  • There are many elderly people living there.

  • If they can walk, they come to the hospital.

  • But if it's difficult for them to walk, they almost always stay at home.

  • They are one step short of being bedridden. They are unable to get out of their home.

  • If they still have their wife living with them it's not so bad.

  • Or if their husband is still alive, it's okay.

  • But if they are alone, it can be a really tragic situation.

  • Nutritionally speaking, they can no-longer cook.

  • They start to have hygiene problems in the house.

  • They can't look after themselves. They can't even take a bath.

  • In addition to this situation, they live in complete solitude.

  • This is such a heart-breaking situation.

  • If you are on your own,

  • it's a very very lonely place in Japan.

  • And loneliness is one of the key factors of the problems

  • particularly for the elderly.

  • They can't get out, there is no way of getting to them

  • Who wants to talk to them?

  • Loneliness kills so many people in Japan

  • They'll never admit to depression or wanting to die.

  • When they come to see a doctor,

  • they say I'm so tired, I can't sleep at night, I'm not feeling good.

  • I always have a headache and am feeling rotten.

  • In this case we as doctors,

  • need to realize early on that it's not just an ordinary headache.

  • We need to look at their family situation and identify the problem as soon as possible.

  • The medical term is called "masked depression".

  • It's crucial to find it at an early stage and take action.

  • One measure is just talking with them and counselling them.

  • If necessary, medication should be started as soon as possible.

  • I often talk with my wife

  • If we suddenly get a stroke or something

  • And are paralyzed and live in wheelchairs

  • And always need children's help and care

  • It won't be meaningful to live a long life

  • If it causes others some trouble

  • And most likely, a normal person would start to think

  • May be I should disappear from earth

  • So that I won't cause trouble to loved ones

  • Gambling is not allowed in Japan

  • Gambling is illegal

  • So what you are seeing here is not gambling

  • It just looks like gambling

  • It's people winning and losing money

  • Some losing money and building massive debts

  • But in Japan remember please gambling is not an addiction

  • And it has absolutely no link to suicide or debt or anything negative

  • It's all about happiness

  • Especially for the elderly

  • Who really enjoy spending 7 or 8 hours a day

  • Watching all the little Pachinko balls falling

  • And saying "what a wonderful life I have!"

  • But please, as this poster says:

  • Don't leave your child in the car when you are gambling

  • Because they will be cooked alive in the summer heat

  • Alcohol linked to suicide in Japan?

  • How dare you even suggest that!

  • In Japan, alcohol makes you feel better

  • When you are lonely and depressed

  • And a bottle of whiskey can help you think more clearly

  • And get your life in order

  • Nobody ever does anything stupid

  • when they are drunk and depressed

  • And on TV, all the big celebrities will tell you:

  • "Come on, have another beer! It's the summer time!"

  • There is really no facilities whatsoever for trying to cure alcoholism in Japan

  • Here no statistics existing on the subject

  • The journalism world doesn't cover it at all

  • I have probably not seen more than two stories in 50 years on the problems of alcohol

  • It's just a problem that is considered to be part of Japanese society

  • And therefore it's not a subject to be taken up

  • I live in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo.

  • In Shinjuku, Kabukicho is a very lively area.

  • Many people come here to work from all over Japan.

  • Because Kabukicho is such a busy area.

  • There is a lot of nightlife and prostitution.

  • When you look at the statistics of Tokyo city,

  • the suicide rate in Shinjuku,

  • Is high for those in their twenties and thirties.

  • There are many female victims in their twenties and thirties in particular.

  • This doesn't really happen in other districts.

  • Why is the suicide rate of young women so high in Shinjuku?

  • This is what I think.

  • Last year I performed several funerals for young women in Shinjuku.

  • They came from rural areas with a dream.

  • But for some reason their dreams were torn apart.

  • They started working at bars or in the sex industry.

  • But they got cheated by men or they got conned out of money.

  • Or they became sick for some reason.

  • Many of them lost hope about the future.

  • They decided to jump off buildings or overdose on drugs and kill themselves.

  • There are many of them who commit suicide like this.

  • Suicide Prevention

  • That's the blue light

  • If you look at the blue light,

  • everything will be alright

  • All your troubles, all your worries, they just melt away...

  • It's a cheap form of suicide prevention

  • Like happy paintings on the walls of stations

  • And ot be honest, I though blue lights were a complete joke.

  • But early results are showing

  • A dramatic fall in the number of suicides

  • In the stations with the blue lights

  • Nobody can really explain why

  • But blue lights are working.

  • Train seem a particularly effective way to kill yourself

  • But statistics show, that 40% of all train-hit victims

  • Do not die, they are just horribly injured

  • They lose their legs, they lose their arms

  • Pity the train drivers who are left haunted

  • By what is known as "the last look"

  • Eye to eye contact, the split second before

  • My friend committed suicide at Ogikubo station.

  • It was around 10 years ago, the penalty fine for the family was $60,000.

  • I got to know someone from the railway company.

  • I helped them set up a telephone helpline.

  • I found out that the railway company has a manager in charge of "human accidents".

  • So I asked him about family penalty fines.

  • He said that for each train suicide, it costs the company around $700,000.

  • This is because passengers will change to other train lines.

  • There is also the cost of cleaning up the accident.

  • The clean-up of the body costs $60,000.

  • The company charges the family for this clean-up.

  • My friend's family paid all the money.

  • In Japanese society, it's the family's responsibility.

  • For those who commit suicide in rented apartments

  • Their parents can expect a large bill from the landlord

  • Because evil spirits are supposed to have frightened away other tenants

  • An "exorcism" is required due to evil spirits.

  • Why is it only suicide creates evil spirits?

  • It's a nasty kind of prejudice and discrimination.

  • I'm totally disgusted by this way of thinking.

  • If you were to go to court to fight these exorcism fees,

  • because it's such a violation of human rights

  • the courts would throw out these demands.

  • One suicide, has ten suicide attempts

  • That means that there is at least

  • 300,000 suicide attempts in Japan every year

  • That means that there is a lot of people

  • Who have tried to kill themselves that are going to the hospitals

  • In Japan, it is reported

  • It's an amazing number,

  • It is reported that 10 to 20% of all the patients Transferred to the most critical emergency medical centers in Japan

  • Including cardiac problems, or strokes, or traffic accidents

  • 10 to 20% of patients transferred to the ER

  • Are suicide attempters in Japan

  • The suicidal people are coming in to the hospitals everyday

  • Cutting their wrists, overdosing

  • And what happens is the hospital

  • will put a bandage on their wrist

  • And say don't do it again, off you go

  • They cut again, and again, and again

  • And come back to the emergency room

  • You could save so many lives

  • So a suicide attemptee comes in

  • Option 1: have a psychiatrist there

  • Have some kind of a social worker there

  • Is it too expensive? Yes?

  • Well at least take their names, take their details.

  • Follow up with them, are they alright afterwards?

  • Why not put them in touch with some psychiatrist

  • Why not give them some free consultations?

  • Incentivize them to try and get help

  • To not just come back, go back home, and a week later,

  • cut their wrists again and they are off again

  • Because one of the times, one of the next times

  • They are not going to the hospital,

  • they are going straight to the morgue

  • Here we are at ground zero

  • The Japan mental health-care system,

  • When facing the dark horrors of depression,

  • What support can Japanese people expect

  • In their hour of greatest need?

  • Psychiatric services are not so good in Japan so far

  • One reason is that the large number of psychiatric people

  • Are hospitalized, institutionalized

  • and partly because of that

  • The support in the community

  • the support for psychiatric patients in the community

  • Is not good or not sufficient

  • The psychiatric patients find it hard to live

  • in this very difficult society

  • These kind of people, sorry to say, weak people

  • Are pushed aside out of the society

  • Then they choose to kill themselves

  • Of 30,000 suicides in Japan

  • 10,000 are already in the mental health-care system

  • They are having consultations, they are getting medications

  • Or they have been institutionalized

  • Japanese psychiatrist are forced to deal with a very large patient base

  • So that the average clinic can include 40 to 50 patients in a city hospital setting

  • Such that, the psychiatrist only has 3 or 4 minutes per individuals

  • Do you think you can solve your problems in 3 or 4 minutes?

  • Especially when the doctor, is already spending half of that time

  • Writing down so many prescriptions of medicine for you to take

  • Does it work? Does it matter?

  • Of course, here you go, take your medicine

  • There is already someone outside the door

  • You have your problems with debt,

  • You have problems with your family

  • You have been bullied at school

  • You are feeling that life has no meaning

  • That's the time over now please

  • As a result of limited resources, both in term of psychiatry and para-professionals

  • Trained psychiatric nurses, social workers

  • And other mental health professionals

  • Care in Japan has been largely focused on

  • Psychosis, largely in-patient

  • And has included very long hospital stays and primarily custodial care

  • When you go into a mental institution in Japan

  • It's very hard to get out

  • Because mental institutions are private institutions

  • Like hotels,

  • You have to fill the beds

  • You have to fill the room occupancy

  • Physicians have to rely unduly on high doses of multiple anti-psychotic medication

  • Which is really very unusual

  • So the kind of treatments that one may expect in the West

  • Individual therapies, group therapies, milieu therapies

  • Simply don't really exist yet

  • In the in-patient psychiatric setting here

  • Every journey must have an end;

  • Our journey ends here, on the cliffs of Tojimbo.

  • Yukio Shige, was a policeman;

  • Sent to work at one of Japan's most infamous suicide locations.

  • His job was often to go in a small boat and fish the remains of victims, out of the sea

  • In one month, he recovered 10 bodies and wondered;

  • Why did nobody ever tried to stop the people jumping?

  • When he retired; he came back to Tojimbo, to try to do something.

  • He used his retirement money to open a tiny café near the cliff's edge

  • And from there he patrols every day, all day;

  • The symbol of the loneliness of suicide prevention in Japan.

  • In the case of traffic accidents,

  • it's the responsibility of the police.

  • The prevention of traffic accidents

  • is a law and order issue.

  • In 1970 a war on road death began

  • because 16,000 people were dying on the roads.

  • The police took the leading role

  • in trying to reduce the number of traffic accidents.

  • The government and citizens worked together on this.

  • Today the number has fallen to 5,000 a year.

  • One third of the previous total.

  • Looking at suicide in Japan.

  • There've been 30,000 deaths every year for the past 12 years.

  • Despite this high number of deaths, nobody takes any responsibility or action.

  • This is just a desperate situation.

  • If we can't force the government to do anything,

  • we the ordinary people can try to do something.

  • So I managed to gather together some people.

  • Now I have 87 volunteers working with me.

  • About 20 of them patrol the cliffs with me.

  • So far by doing this for 6 years and 7 months,

  • we've been able to save 297 lives up to today.

  • This cliff here is the number one spot for suicide.

  • Often people are waiting here alone until sunset.

  • They're just sitting here, waiting for somebody to talk to them.

  • We go over and talk to them.

  • We ask them what is troubling them?

  • And we try to help them to solve their problems.

  • We also give this kind of help.

  • From the 297 people that we have rescued,

  • only 4 of them have killed themselves afterwards.

  • The rest are doing well and have made a new start.

  • Nobody wants to die.

  • They're just waiting for help.

  • Why don't we try to reach out to help them?

  • A citizen's life is priceless. It's a treasure, isn't it?

  • People are begging for help, aren't they?

  • Why are we not reaching out our hand to them?

  • If you just look the other way, that's just the same as a crime.

  • It's an aggravated abandonment crime.

  • 646 people have jumped and died here in the last 30 years.

  • 646 people!

  • There are only three spots here that you can jump off from.

  • Surely you can build something at those three spots.

  • So we've pleaded with the local authorities to do something.

  • But they just say no because this is a tourist spot, What exactly are they saying?

  • Saving lives is not as important as making money from tourists?

  • That's a crime. It's the same as murder.

  • We already have all the answers.

  • We already know exactly what to do.

  • But we choose to do absolutely nothing.

  • I'll never forgive this.

  • Too little, too late

  • I thought what a nightmare to have a neighbor like this

  • One who is always knocking on your door for tea and sympathy.

  • As she had got older, work had got less and less;

  • She said she'd barely leave her room.

  • I quickly got bored listening; it was depressing.

  • So when a knock would come,

  • I'd turn down the TV and keep quiet

  • She slipped a tiny note under my door,

  • with her phone number, e-mail address, phone e-mail;

  • Saying talk to you soon:

  • Then thankfully, she stopped knocking.

  • A couple of months later,

  • I got angry when the landlord wouldn't fix the gas leak

  • That was leaving such a horrible smell in the corridor.

  • She was only discovered after 3 or 4 weeks of the summer heat.

  • Two days later, I looked out the spy hole of my door,

  • To see an elderly lady stacking boxes.

  • Despite the smell, she didn't wear a mask,

  • It was still her daughter.

  • No matter how many people I interview

  • Or what answers I find Saving 10,000,

  • I will always know; I couldn't even save one.

  • I didn't care, it was too boring.

  • It's not up to the government to save us,

  • Blaming this or that.

  • Sometimes all you need to save someone's life

  • Is to take the time to listen.

  • If we are looking for the enemy in a war on suicide,

  • All we have to do is to look in the mirror.

  • In memory of a friend

When you call a suicide helpline in Japan

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B1 中級 美國腔

自殺者1萬人を救う戦い - 自殺者1萬人を救う戦い - 日本紀錄片。 (SAVING 10,000 - Winning a War on Suicide in Japan - 自殺者1万人を救う戦い - Japanese Documentary)

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    阿多賓 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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