The life of teenagers seems to be consumed more and more within the virtual network. Smartphones, tablets and PCs represent the privileged social fabric of the new generations. It is precisely in this socialization scenario that the so -called ‘Blue Whale Challenge‘, also called suicide game.
The word whale (translation of English whale) personally recalls the tale of Pinocchio of that Carlo Collodi who was born and lived in Florence: instinctively the image of that animal that first swallowed Geppetto, then Pinocchio, and from which together by turning on a fire they manage to come out, is activated in my mind. Several years have passed since my adolescence. Moreover, however, transforming that whale representation into a game that sows victims in the world is something not easy to make.
Why Blue Whale? Ethologists know well that whales choose to beach without any apparent reason; They run on the beach by running the serious risk of dying since they can no longer return to the water.
In recent weeks, thanks to a service of the ‘Le Iene’ television broadcast, a phenomenon born in Russia has brought to the attention of our country by a psychology student. The twenty -two year old Philipp Budeikin would be the creator of the game who instigates teenagers to suicide.
The danger seems to be tangible: in Russia alone, 157 would be suicidal girls who died in the last year. Can we be sure that they are suicides attributable to this game? Obviously not. In fact, some say that it is not true, bringing the game back to an isolated case transformed into a metropolitan legend. It is up to the main organs to deal with the truthfulness or not of the phenomenon.
Moreover, however, adolescents talk about it and, they talk about it, the phenomenon exists like something true, of real in their daily experience. And this is sufficient to consider it a fact that cannot be ignored. There is no doubt that the media clamor of this ‘game’ could complicate the picture with bravate and emulation gestures making the work of the bodies of competence difficult.
So what to do? There are those who claim that it is good to glissce on the theme, leaving that taboo to suicide that can prevent the risk of stimulating its curiosity, or transforming this phenomenon, real or presumed, in the opportunity to speak of an uncomfortable topic, such as suicide (or the attempt to suicide) in adolescence. I try to choose the second option.
Blue Whale It therefore seems to be a deadly game that pushes teenagers to get wounds on the body until they lead them to death. Like any self -respecting game, it provides rules: 50 actions to be carried out (one per day) preparatory to the last rule that requires jumping into the void from a high building and taking your life in hand. The actions are comparable to a series of “levels” that boys must pursue, just like inside a video game.
It seems that teenagers can be adapted in chat by a ‘tutor’ that aims to encourage the boys to participate in the challenge and respect the rules of the game. The participant is asked to get some cuts (drawing on the body, among other things, a blue whale), watch horror and psychedelic films in early morning hours, interfering so heavily with the sleep-wake rhythm, up to the last test, the definitive one: suicide. All testified to the tutor with a photo so that it can confirm the achievement of the objective by socially reinforcing the finish line.
Suicide among young people: a weapon of mass destruction
It is difficult to have a precise estimate of the number of suicides between teenagers. However, it seems that iSuicide is the second cause of death, after road accidents, among young people aged between 15 and 29 (Turecki & Brent, 2016). According to Istat, there is talk of about 500 cases in the last year and this frequency could be underestimated compared to the real phenomenon.
In adolescence, suicidal fantasies are very frequent and it is good to keep the patterns from the implementation of the same distinct. Fortunately, in fact, only a small percentage of these fantasies translates into a defined action. If it is true that in some cases the suicides take place as a result of unpredictable situations, most of the time it is not so.
In most cases, in fact, before an attempt to suicide, the subject entertains himself in fantasies for a long time, mostly secret, which cannot be confessed to the adult world (Pietropolli Charmet & Piotti, 2009). Here the virtual reality can be the theater in which to share these thoughts and it can happen to be able to find someone to reflect with.
It therefore seems that the plan to complete one’s life by the young man can be something thought and put aside, then resumed, and considered as the best attempt to solve a state otherwise intolerable.
The fact that the suicide attempt may not be largely the consequence of impulsive gestures leaves ample prevention margin and we all need to believe that we could or could have changed things if only we had paid attention to certain signs of the adolescent. The incessant formulation of hypotheses on not recognized signs in the adolescent allows to restore the illusion of control by subverting a feeling of helplessness that would make the suicidal attempt even more intolerable.
The feelings of autoaccusa and the sense of guilt that derive from it, however framework, have the function of making a world ‘predictable’ that, after such an unexpected, violent and traumatic death, is no longer.
What can push a teenager to suicide?
The question that everyone is asking is what a teenager can push to commit suicide. As far as adolescence has always been considered a difficult transition phase, it is used to think that adolescent years should be happy and, as such, it can be idiosyncratic that a teenager chooses to commit suicide. And it is precisely the element of choice, linked to one’s death, that acts as a helmet of many more questions than the deaths for natural or accidental causes.
However, it is important to emphasize that teenagers try suicide or come to make it not because they want to die; Rather, death is configured as an attempt to escape from real and unbearable pain. A frustration so intolerable as to be incompatible with life. Most of the teenagers interviewed after an attempt at suicide affirm that the main causes are mostly attributable to feelings of impotence and despair. Often they feel unwanted, rejected, frightened to disappoint others; We perceive a weight for everyone.
They live their lives by feeling extreme ashamed about their inadequacy and this experience exposes them to the risk of humiliations and social mortifications that increase, in a vicious circle, pain and shame making the perspective of the future absolutely anguished.
The total absence of hope for the future could thus push the young man to contemplate two strategies in an attempt to find a solution from an otherwise unsustainable life (Petropolli Charmet & Piotti, 2009). The first option would consist of an exile from the real world while undergoing the fascination of virtual reality.
This is where the Blue Whale It could represent an opportunity for self -redemption, such as to generate that consensus and approval that the young man has not managed to obtain in real life. The second, on the other hand, would result in an attempt to soothe pain through a project of revenge that, on the one hand, unleashes the immense pain of the wounds suffered, and on the other it attributes to others the responsibility of their suffering by forcing them to feel guilty.
This second option can be the basis of the TV series’Thirteen‘In which the protagonist Hannah Baker, before committing suicide, prepares the audiocassette for the people you feel as responsible for her death and in which the 13 reasons that explain her gesture are provided. In this way, suicide reveals the pain and reasons that have prompted to die in order to further avoid the harassment of life and people who, instead of being close to you, humiliate you making you feel unworthy of being in the world.
I read about much indignation, even among the insiders, to that suicide can be interpreted as an act of revenge. Moreover, the experience of colleagues who work with teenagers who have attempted suicide report this as a possible scenario.
It makes horror perhaps think of suicide as a vindictive act towards bullying, abuses, harassment, humiliations of any kind and perhaps terrifies to reflect on a fantasy of revenge, on the basis of which suicide can repent the bully of the abuses that have played a role in putting an end to their existence. Far from me to glorify suicide, aware of how dangerous it can be for the victim to feel almost justified with respect to the evil that has endured and legitimized with suicide to redeem those who have hurt her. In any case, there are never good reasons to carry out such a devastating action on their body and the memory of loved ones.
Regardless of the reasons, there is no doubt that there must be something very serious if a boy sees in death an opportunity, a solution to his evil to live.
The opportunity to speak of such a delicate theme raises a reflection with respect to what the world of adults and that of peers can do to prevent suicide. Considering, as mentioned above, how difficult it is that an isolated event leads to this extreme gesture, it may be useful to know how to catch signals in the adolescent who push us to listen to young people, not being afraid to face any suicidal fantasies and ask them questions.
Sudden and sudden changes in the way of behaving represent signals not to be underestimated. For example, it may happen that the boy no longer wants to leave the house or relating to others preferring to spend most of the time withdrawn in his room, used as a virtual planet; The loss of interests for sports activities, for hobbies, as well as the discovery of wounds or cuts in the body. And again, a drop in school performance, as well as a state of constant irritability and profound consternation in the face of the slightest disappointment, which is a bad vote as well as a not love correspondence.
The most frequent error is trivializing, which is very different to ‘normalize’. To put it in the words of Pietropolli Charmt and Piotti (2009), “Death has an incomprehensible charm for those who have never thought of delivering her honor and desire for redemption to her“(P.7).
Silence and denial by the adult world do not give the right to existence to the adolescent death thoughts, not allowing the recognition of that pain that acts as a trigger for suicidal behavior.
Hence the invitation to grasp signals, perhaps harmless, however worthy of exploration, sufficient to elicit a dialogue with the teenager compared to how he is, to what he lives, to what he feels. This is our best form of prevention. Perhaps.
Essential bibliography:
Pietropolli Chamet, G., & Piotti, A. (2009). Kill yourself. The attempt to suicide in adolescence. Raffaello Cortina publisher.
Turecki, G., & Brent, from (2016). Suicide and Suicidal Behaviour. Lancet; 387: 1227-39. DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736 (15) 00234-2.
