Whether you've watched that disturbing Facebook Live video of Arjun Bhardwaj's 'pre-suicide' tutorial or not, here's the real shocker: nobody saw it coming. Like literally. Almost till the end of the video, where he points the phone's camera toward the window showing the sunset outside Mumbai's Taj Hotel, you may have wondered if the 24-year-old student was just kidding around while drunk, or whether he was serious about ending it all.
Now we know the answer. He was serious. Dead serious.
At a time when India has been declared the depression capital of the world, there could be someone who's depressed right next to you — it could be the girl next door, the person sitting in the cubicle or the grumpy loner who doesn't say thanks when you let them move up in the lunch line.
How do you know someone is depressed? We asked popular Chennai-based counselling psychologist Saras Bhaskar to list out those vital signs to watch for.
1) He appears aloof and distances himself from any activity that they would normally participate in. Sometimes they just ask for alone time while in some other cases they get a little abrasive and push their regular company away
2) They avoid going out. Instead, they give you gyaan about being lone rangers and liking solitude and instead stay at home and end up crying or sitting in a melancholy state of mind
3) They show a lack of appetite. This is often a much ignored but extremely telltale sign that doesn't only pop up when someone falls in love
4) Lack of motivation and drive. Imagine someone who used to keep pushing you to get off the couch and run with them, suddenly reversing roles and staying indoors. They're not just lazy, they're probably depressed
5) You probably don't know it, but they've expressed their desire to end life in some strange way or the other. It may have been something as small as a sick joke or agreeing with a tragic movie ending on TV — there is always an indication before the fall
In Stage I, every now and then, random thoughts about suicide pop up and keep recurring
Stage II is ideation. They talk about it and get ideas about when and how to do it.
In Stage III, and if they get here it's game over, they attempt suicide
