THE INQUISITIVE

Let us now think of The Inquisitive as, less of a film, and more of a cause. There are many reasons people choose to end their own lives, but we focus on a teenage girl who is in true despair over the meaningless of life. She is silently suffering with depression which fuels her with nihilistic and suicidal ideologies until one day she cannot bear the burden any longer and takes her own life.

As a cause, what we are discussing is this simple fact: ‘50% of mental health problems are established by age 14’ (1) this may not sound of great importance, but it’s the embryo of what could potentially lead to a person choosing to take their own life. In wider society we deem 14 years of age as the time one would, perhaps, stop playing with toys, or stop climbing trees. We never think of it as an age where an individual would need to stop the onset of mental illness, and this needs to change. Right now, imagine all of the horrors in the world, every last bad thought leading up to death itself, each one attached to a diagnosed mental illness. Now, half that horror and place it into the mind of a 14 year old. Half their mind is potentially filled with the darkest toxicity of ones imagination and they are expected to, without anyone thinking this ‘child’ could possibly be suffering from a mental illness, just ‘carry on’. From here, life continues to fade and with a lack of understanding what these dark thoughts rushing through their mind every second of everyday even mean, what are they to do? Well, surely their families will notice…right?

But what if there’s not enough awareness, and what most professionals would consider symptoms, most of the population think is just ‘adolescent behaviour’? There is too great of a stigma attached to young people and their emotions, they simply aren’t taken seriously enough. Granted, a 14 year old hasn’t had the life experiences of someone twice their age, but does that mean what they’re suffering doesn’t exist? Of course, it’s not the adult’s fault if they do not know what to look out for and think it’s simply their son, daughter, nephew or niece going through the ‘stroppy teen phase’. But it’s this lack of awareness, this lack of understanding, that can lead to life-altering mental health illnesses and, at worst, fatalities.

Data from NHS Digital showed that 41% of all admissions to hospital for self-harm were teenagers, and what’s the standard reaction to teenage self-harm? ‘Attention seeking’. Well…yes! It’s most definitely attention seeking, but not in the detrimental term, in the deepest, darkest recesses of a young adolescent mind screaming for someone to help them. And when they’re not taken seriously, where does this leave them? Dissociated from a society that is meant to be there to help them. And if they lose faith in the world around them, their purpose slowly dissipates. The ‘Good Childhood Report’ showed that ’15 year olds in the UK are among the saddest and least satisfied with their lives in Europe’, continuing on it states their report ‘highlights the high levels of ‘fear of failure’ among 15 year olds in the UK compared to other countries.

Many felt their life didn’t have a sense of purpose.’ And there it is, we reach the peak of our Everest. ‘Their life didn’t have a sense of purpose’, these are not just ‘stroppy teenagers’, these are human beings who are suffering in silence and are far more intelligent than society gives them credit for. But with everything else happening to this poor adolescent, what else is left for them to do, if not engross themselves in an existential crisis like this? And if mental illness is already prevalent, then the outlook for suicide is even worse. This lack of purpose is then the fully-formed embryo that will soon take this person’s life. Suicide is the final step for one who has no purpose in life. Why fight to live when there is no purpose in living? More must be done to prevent this, and it most definitely can be prevented if we can raise the awareness of these issues and simply spoke to each other about these feelings we or other’s are struggling with. What if mainstream media outlets spoke up about the rise in teenage depression and suicide? What if more research was undertaken to explore why these young people have no purpose and why there are nearly 300 suicides each year of people aged 10 – 19.(2)

And if not them, then it is left to us, the contemporary artist in the guise of filmmakers. If The Inquisitive can raise the awareness of this issue with the backing of charities and establishments all joining the fight to prevent anymore needless suffering and deaths of teenagers, then this film will have accomplished its cause. So please don’t think of The Inquisitive as ‘just another teenage suicide film’. It’s far more than that.

1. Lifetime prevalence and age-of-onset distributions of DSM-IV disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication | 2005 |
Ronald C Kessler 1, Patricia Berglund, Olga Demler, Robert Jin, Kathleen R Merikangas, Ellen E Walters

2. Samaritans Suicide Statistics Report | 2019 & Suicides in England and Wales – Office for National Statistics | 2021

We have been lucky enough to collaborate with a range of charities, foundations and institutions who are all fighting for the prevention and awareness of teenage mental illness and teenage suicide.

The OLLLIE Foundation is a registered charity devoted to stopping teenagers and young people from taking their own lives, funding suicide intervention skills training for young people, professionals and members of the general public.

The Institute for Lifecourse Development is a resource centre run by the University of Greenwich where professionals from different fields work closely together with researchers and stakeholders from public, charitable and voluntary organisations.