TW: suicide. also no, i am not defending it. read before cooking me in the replies lol.
Whenever someone our age says they don't want to live, the advice is almost always “life is precious”, “think about your parents”, “marks aren't everything bro”. None of that is wrong.
But then what?
Most of the time they get sent back to the same house, same coaching, same relationship and the same future they were trying to escape. We save them for one night and do fuck all about the actual trap.
I was reading Osho and some Stoic stuff recently (diabolical combo, ik) and one idea stuck with me. A lot of suicidal people may not hate life itself. They hate this specific version of it and can't see another way for it to end.
Osho’s point, after removing the guru fog, was basically that society can reduce you to a cog and make death look like the only exit still under your control. His answer wasn't physical suicide. It was changing the shape and direction of your life.
And this isn't only guru gyaan either. Suicide research talks about “entrapment”: desperately needing to escape something unbearable while believing that every exit is closed.
So open an exit.
Fail JEE. Change streams. Repeat a year. Leave the college. Stay with another relative. End the relationship. Go to a hospital. Disappoint your parents. Let “log kya kahenge” go to hell for once.
These might all count as “ruining your life” in an Indian family, but they are reversible. Death isn't.
The Stoic part I agree with is that merely continuing to breathe isn't the highest good. How you live matters too. But I don't follow them all the way to suicide. When someone is trapped in unbearable pain, they are not seeing a full and calm map of every possible future. Autonomy doesn't magically make every urge wise just because it is yours.
Stop the irreversible act first, obviously. But then actually create more options instead of forcing the person back into the same prison and congratulating yourself for saving them.
And “think about your mother” cannot be the entire argument. It might stop someone in that moment, which matters, but nobody should have to stay alive forever only as a debt to other people. Help them find reasons and a life that belong to them too.
This painting is Manfred on the Jungfrau by Ford Madox Brown. Manfred is at the edge and, in Byron’s scene, the hunter behind him reaches him before he jumps. Everyone understands why he must be pulled back.
But that is only step one.
What has to change in the life he is returning to?
So yeah. Sometimes real suicide prevention means letting someone's old life end. Save the person, not their exam attempt, family reputation, career timeline or assigned identity.
Staying alive can be rebellion too. But only if people are allowed to rebel against the life that was breaking them.
TL;DR: Before suicide, ruin your life first.
If you genuinely feel like you have nothing left to lose, then use that freedom. Fail the exam. Change streams. Drop the course. Leave the relationship. Stay with someone else. Disappoint your parents. Start over from zero if you have to.
If the alternative in your head is literally death, why protect a career plan, reputation, marksheet or “log kya kahenge”?
Destroy the version of your life that is killing you before you destroy yourself.
Most of those things are reversible. Death isn’t.