The Chilling Case of the Towhid Brothers: A Wake Up Call for Muslims and Mental Health

*Trigger warning: This post deals with the topic of suicide and self harm.

Last weekend, Farhan and Tanvir Towhid of Allen, Texas, killed their entire family. They took their own lives in the process, leaving behind a chilling suicide note in the wake.

Farhan Towhid’s suicide note is a stark and shocking reminder to all of us that suicide is real and that we need to take mental health more seriously. By “we”, I mean the collective “we” of society but I also mean the specific “we” of the Muslim community.

I’m not speaking theoretically. My story is chilling as well. I saw a prominent Muslim psychiatrist for years. I cried to her about my pain. I told her many times about my desire to die. But when I ended up in the psychiatric hospital at age 38, after cutting myself with a piece of glass, she reprimanded me and told me it was “pseudo suicide” and said I was “the boy who cried wolf.”

Self harm is an addiction

Self harm and self mutilation is not “the boy who cried wolf” simply because it fails to achieve the end result of suicide. According to my new psychiatrist, it’s actually something a lot scarier. It’s an addiction. So much so, in fact, that my psychiatrist said that teens who self mutilate should be on the same medication used for opioid addiction. According to The Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services, there is an increase in dopamine linked to self-injury.

Middle Eastern and Muslim Youth are Susceptible

A friend of mine who works in mental health said there is a prevalence of teenage Pakistani and Middle Eastern boys who self-harm. I don’t know that the link is, but the thought is chilling. As a first generation Pakistani woman, I know the pain of not fitting in, of feeling isolated and misunderstood. Although it’s twenty-five years later, society has not changed in how it views Muslims and Middle-Easterners, despite how much we laud progress. Just look at what’s on television. We scoff at the character of Balki from Perfect Strangers and yet, we’ve repeated that mockery in the United States of Al, where we minstrelize Afghani men and make fools of them. Is it a wonder that our boys still feel isolated, different, and marginalized?

Self harm is rooted in self-hate. I’m no psychiatrist but I can speak from experience. Our kids are growing up in a post 9–11, post Trump era where they remain “the outsider.” They are still susceptible. They are still “the other”. They are still called names like “terrorist.”

Let’s Get Real

Let’s dig our heads out of the sand. Let’s not call self-harm “the boy who cried wolf.” It’s real. It may be a cry for attention. Or it may be something more. The next time someone tells you that they’ve been harming themselves, or that they want to die… or that they feel “trapped”…take it seriously. Listen to them. Don’t give them advice on how to “pull themselves together”. I’m so sick of people telling me to “pull myself together” or “get my ducks in a row.” I don’t want another person telling me to pray my depression away or to do roqia to exorcise the demons out of me. A person who is feeling suicidal needs someone to listen.

Suicide and self-harm are critical issues in all communities. But the Muslim community, including the mental health experts in the community, need to take these things seriously.