Kashmir's Battle With Self-Harm

Stories of pain in Kashmir are often reduced to labels. This is a survivor’s account of survival, vulnerability, and speaking out.

- Musaib Bilal

I tried to take my life at sixteen, and again at eighteen.

Both times I felt I had run out of room for pain, shame, and the weight of feeling unworthy. I believed I was a waste, burden, and undeserving of space.

The first time, I was drowning in the chaos of adolescence. My grades were slipping, friendships were thin, and mask of perfection was cracking.

The second time, the ache was heavier, more suffocating. Years of unspoken grief had built a wall around me. I thought I was too far gone.

But here I am, writing this. That, in itself, is proof. Survival and healing are possible. Life can be rebuilt.

People don't end their lives because they hate living. They do it because they want their pain to stop.

Suicide is rarely about a single event. It grows out of layers: mental illness, stress, shame, isolation, trauma, money worries, and heartbreak.

These forces converge until hope seems to vanish.

Behind every attempt there is a cry for help to end the misery.

The way we speak about suicide adds another wound. The label “pagal” is thrown around with ease.

That one word erases the human story, the years of silent battles, and the weight of trauma.

It turns a life into a caricature and a family into a whisper. This stigma not only dishonours the dead but also silences the living. People who might reach out stay silent, afraid of ridicule, and being treated as broken.