tw: su*c*de, exam/academic pressure.
i just read that yet another student commits suicide In Kota after two years of trying hard for NEET and just a few days back there were news about 4/5 suicides within 90 days in a reputed National institute… these kinda things they just sit heavy in your chest in a way you can’t really explain.
another student gone because the pressure became too much and the worst part is how normal this is starting to feel. we read it, we feel bad for a minute, we shake our heads, and then we move on like this is just how things are. but how did we even get here. how did one path become so big that it starts deciding who deserves to feel proud and who should feel like they have failed at life.
these are kids, not machines, not ranks, not numbers on a list. real people who stayed up late, who tried again and again, who carried expectations that were never meant to be this heavy. and somewhere in all of that pressure, they stopped feeling like they had a way out.
that is what breaks me the most. not just the loss but the silence before it, the way someone can be struggling so much and still feel like they cannot say it out loud because everyone around them is only asking about marks, attempts, results. no one is asking are you okay, are you tired, do you need a break. and even if they do, it does not feel like a real option because stopping feels like failure, slowing down feels like losing, choosing a different path feels like disappointing everyone.
so they keep going until they cant. this is not just stress, this is a system that makes people feel like their entire worth fits into one result, and when that result does not go their way it feels like everything is over. it should never feel like that, not for anyone. no exam, no path, no expectation should have this kind of power over a life and no student should feel like disappearing is easier than facing one more day of pressure.
if you are someone going through this right now please hear this, you are not your score, you are not your rank, you are not a failure for needing rest or for choosing something else. your life is bigger than this even if it does not feel like it today.
and if you are someone around these students be softer, be kinder, stop measuring people only by what they achieve, because sometimes what someone really needs is just to feel like they are still enough even without a result.
