In her research regarding suicide website visitors, Dr. Chikako Ozawa-de Silva noticed three distinctive types of mental pain and existential angst expressed by these website visitors.
What are those? Dr. Chikako explains the three points: severe loneliness, absence of meaning in life, and the feeling of not being needed by anyone.
Nick: So through your research, you came to realise three distinctive types of mental pain and existential angst expressed by these website visitors. So would you like to touch on those three points?
Chikako: There are quite a few, right? I was following these suicide websites, and I was reading posted narratives, comments by people who are regular suicide website visitors. But eventually, I came to realise, there seems like three distinctive forms of mental pain:
One is the severe loneliness. It's like an acute sense of loneliness. The second is the kind of absence of meaning in life -- what's the point of keeping on living, that sense. And a third form of mental pain that I kept noticing was a feeling of not being needed by anyone.
So like I don't matter, I don't mean anything, I am replaceable, I'm not needed, I'm not being needed by anyone.
So I remember that one person posting, like if somebody said, she or he needs me, that would be enough. That would be enough for me to keep on living. But the person just didn't feel that was there.
Nick: Well, it certainly highlights what's important to us. It's profound how simple it could be to satisfy that just to say, I need you to someone.