We need to go upstream and find out why they're falling in.'ДЄnd from where I'm standing, we've been at that point for a very long time. I'm speaking out because while there has been increased discussion of mental health in the Muslim community, we still struggle with the topic of suicide.Д«ut, as Desmond Tutu once said:В 'There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. The guilt that often accompanied those visits was suffocating, tiring and in hindsight, plain unnecessary.

I have spent a significant amount of time in waiting rooms and in the offices of mental health professionals. It's taken me years to realise my mental health struggles have no connection with my worth as a Muslim. I believed, as I'd been told by so many people around me, that I simply wasn't praying enough, that Allah was angry with me, or that I was a weak, ungrateful and un-Islamic person. A couple of episodes of self-harm every month didn't mean I was spiralling, right? It was a normal response to stress, I'd thought, and the thoughts of suicide were just me internally being an attention-seeker, I reasoned. I had spent years convincing myself that I was fine. Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467Д«y the time I was 19, I had reached a very dangerous cliff and I was teetering precariously on its edge.I was waiting for my first trauma therapy session with my third psychologist. With every bounce, the healing wounds on my thigh gave a painful ache that kept me grounded.ДЇor the third time in five years, I was back in a pastel-coloured room. My right leg had a mind of its own and bounced a rhythm to every tick of the clock.

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