On The Tragedy of Suicide in the K-Pop Industry, Grief, and the Journey

The suicide of someone is never easy. On April 19, Moon Bin from the K-Pop group Astro took his own life. I’ve followed Astro in their early years and knew of Moon Bin through his role in the drama Boys over Flowers. He had always struck me as cheerful, with an adorable smile . Understandably, many were shocked. As someone with a lived experience of struggling with my mental health, I am very easily affected by news of someone’s suicide. I was so affected that I had to work on it in therapy today. It was excruciating. It was painful.

My therapist and I use a method of therapy that involves trauma reprocessing. She asked me what was one word I associated with the incident. I choked out, rather gutturally, “Loneliness.” Because I felt for him, even though I didn’t know him. How he must have felt so alone in his last moments. I clenched in sadness and grief. I nearly threw up.

I do love K-Pop. I love stepping off the plane to South Korea, and appreciating their incredible food, and very vibrant culture. So much good, and so much sadness as well that we learn to acknoweldge. The last suicide that affected me this much was Jonghyun’s. He was a member of SHINEE, and an incredibly talented human being. As these thoughts are in my head, I realise there is so much I want to say, so therefore I have decided I will do what I do best — write it out. Good or not, it’s okay.

When I was in my early 20s, I fantasised about being a K-Pop idol. If you are a K-pop fan, this is a very common dream. While others found attraction in the fame and recognition, that wasn’t what attracted me at first. It was performing in a group with teammates, friends, having a community and family. I thought that gaining recognition on stage was a good bonus to get validation. What I didn’t realise was that went on behind being an idol. Travelling is a luxury and gift to many people, but when it becomes part of your job, it’s easy to lose its glamour. Even the most glamorous things can lose its shine when it becomes a duty. Even teammates squabble. Life is not perfect. There are other issues as well.

The Loss of Privacy

The paparazzi in South Korea are another beast. Not to mention fan culture. Imagine being hounded by fans and photographers everywhere you go. No privacy or freedom to step outside and just order a coffee without hiding. No freedom to date and just be a normal person. What’s ironic is — the larger your celebrity presence, the easier it is to feel more alone.

Loneliness

There is something I will never agree with in the K-pop industry, and that is the debuting of extremely young K-pop idols. Nowadays, it’s extremely common to see trainees as young as 10 years old training their life away to become an idol. They get separated from their families at a young age, are forced to mature and be independent from young. They are taught to appeal to the public, behave in the ‘right’ way. In many ways, it is a loss of childhood. Yes, they might have teammates with them, adults that monitor them. But they are still very much alone.

The freedom to just be a child is so incredibly important. Idols are forced to keep an image, and in Korea, I’ve rarely ever seen idols openly talk about their mental health struggles. They are forced to keep up appearances, happy or not. I see all these brand deals, idols posting for famous companies, and as a young person I used to think that it was incredibly fascinating and cool. What an ideal life, I thought. But I realise now that no amount of followers, brands, glitz and glamour can replace loneliness.

There is the loneliness of physicality — a loss of privacy, reduced intimate relationships the more famous you are. There is the loneliness of identity — who am I without my fans? Who am I when I am lost? Can I still be? Is it okay to just be me? There is the loneliness of emotions — can they express their sadness, their suffering without being judged? In that sense — being a celebrity, despite thousands of followers — can be an incredibly isolating and lonely job.

Eventually, you feel that the only way you can be loved and respected is to be that image of someone ‘valuable’.

With Jong Hyun’s death, I was inconsolable. It haunted me for years. When it happened, the word ‘why’ rung in my mind for a long time. How can darkness exist? To someone so talented? During that time, I had been struggling with school and trauma. I, too, was in the performing arts, and it felt shocking and unsettling to see someone crumble to the pressures of fame and having to keep up his appearance just to appear functional and to survive in the environment, all while struggling with his depression. Because of past trauma, I hated acknowledging the pain I had experienced. The fact that I would always be different. I spent years growing up and trying to appear ‘normal’, admonishing myself like a strict disciplinarian every time Ifelt terrible, needy, or angry or had feelings that were ‘bad’.

But rejecting your feelings just to curtail to an expected ideal doesn’t make them go away.

It doesn’t solve the problem. It doesn’t erase the pain. You will still face stigma in school or other places. You might still face people, teachers, and peers misunderstanding. Wondering why you can’t keep up. It will all depend on whether you can articulate yourself, and accept that even when you do, not everyone will listen. Not everyone is mental health literate. Not everyone understands.

I felt so incredibly pressured to keep up my front, all while knowing I was being ostracised, knowing I was struggling with dance, singing, and worst of all, my Complex PTSD, which at that time I had received no help more because it hadn’t been diagnosed or even discovered yet. All I knew was that I was in a mess, and the environment and lack of understanding did not help. I was experiencing flashbacks in toilets, and drowning in ignorance did not help one single bit. I just wanted someone to reach out. Someone to see me.

I can’t even begin to imagine the lives of K-Pop idols, where mental health discussions aren’t even heard of, where they have to face a hundred cameras following them. It must be so hard.

Because certain environments force us to put on a smile, or a persona to function, the pressure can be unbelievable. Nobody wants to be a burden on purpose.

We think our lives disimilar to idols — but I’m sure that for those struggling with their mental health, they’ve felt the same pressure to ‘perform’ or look ‘okay’ just so that they could function. As someone who’s experienced studying performing arts, it isn’t easy. Let’s not even talk about the environment, which plays a big factor in supporting those with mental health struggles. If the environment was one that pressured you to ‘do your part’ and based all their respect on you based on how well you ‘worked’, what would happen if you one day just simply…couldn’t keep up? What if you couldn’t dance anymore, or sing well? Were you a failure? A loser? A reject? Unfortunately, such environments can be found anywhere — schools, workplaces, and not least of all, the K-pop industry.

It hurts, because it reminds me of myself, too.

Through therapy, I realise that light and darkness will always exist. It is not a matter of vanquishing it, spitting at it. It is a matter of acknowledging that both will always exist. Even on days you feel like the world is on fire — you’ve stepped on dog shit and a bird has crapped on you and you’ve lost everything, your family, your food, your home, your clothes, your job— the light doesn’t vanquish simply because darkness was there. They exist, both of them. I am a huge lover of The Lord of the Rings, and the stories have told me much about pain, suffering, trauma, loss, and hope.

“It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end… because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing… this shadow. Even darkness must pass.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

And Tolkien was no stranger to darkness. He had fought in the World War, and had seen comrades slaughtered in front of him. Some may think that fantasy stories are all unrealistic and up there with their elves and dragons and dwarfs. There is a reason for that. Tolkien was no foolish idealist — He knew. He saw. He experienced. He not only saw but experienced and had breathed darkness. And yet, it was through his experience that he was able to understand and know the importance of light.

And truly, I see eons of differences in the way I respond, now. I am judging myself when I was lost in the woods, trapped without knowing the degree to which I had been traumatised without a pathway. I had to process this recent death in therapy today, and it has really helped. I was trying to hide, and the grief didn’t know how to be processed.

But sometimes, you have to hold grief by the hand and sit with it. Depending on the scenario, you may not be able to touch its hand, but you can try. There are ways to process — and they may be extremely difficult, but needed. I see myself trying now — to accept these feelings humans have. And if to accept myself fully means to be able to post what aligns with my true expression, if it means to unfollow people, or to lose followers, or to find people that align more with my values and what I stand for and beleive in, or to start a new channel, then so be it. We have the right to plant our seeds to flower. I want to be able to share my writing, post my links, without being afraid.

Before therapy, I would have been stuck deadlocked in my grief — and it could spiral or get retriggered and slip. But I’m learning someone called ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) from an extremely skilled psychologist. From Psychology Today:

“Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is an action-oriented approach to psychotherapy that stems from traditional behavior therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy. Clients learn to stop avoiding, denying, and struggling with their inner emotions and, instead, accept that these deeper feelings are appropriate responses to certain situations that should not prevent them from moving forward in their lives. With this understanding, clients begin to accept their hardships and commit to making necessary changes in their behavior, regardless of what is going on in their lives and how they feel about it.

ACT was developed in the 1980s by psychologist Steven C. Hayes, a professor at the University of Nevada. The ideas that coalesced into ACT emerged from Hayes’s own experience, particularly his history of panic attacks. Eventually, he vowed that he would no longer run from himself — he would accept himself and his experiences.

“We as a culture seem to be dedicated to the idea that ‘negative’ human emotions need to be fixed, managed, or changed — not experienced as part of a whole life. We are treating our own lives as problems to be solved as if we can sort through our experiences for the ones we like and throw out the rest,” Hayes writes in a Psychology Today post. “Acceptance, mindfulness, and values are key psychological tools needed for that transformative shift.”

I am still learning the methods and ways of it, and it is only the beginning. Now that I’ve started trauma-focused therapy, I am more aware of my inclinations and can understand how these spirals trigger. Instead of languishing in the pit for months, I can either ask for help, or to sit with the feeling without judgement. In therapy, we need to be focused on both the process and the goal, but to also leave space for slowness and failures. And it is slow, baby steps. In accepting and articulating your character proudly, even if it means having losses. But you will also gain. The world has no shortage of people.

We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses. — Carl Jung

All in all, being a lover of K-Pop also means understanding that the industry, and the society has a long, long way to go in terms of understanding mental health. Now — this post isn’t meant to only focus on the darkness. Moon Bin shone. He shone like a supernova on stage, he danced and sang well, he shone for his fans. It breaks my heart to think of him as gone. He had always struck me as the cute, happy one in the group. I know it’s natural to focus on grief, because it is a tragedy. It is heartbreaking, shocking, and though it’s only my second day of hearing the news, I still can’t believe it. But I also acknowledge that he shone brightly. I choose to also remember his attributes. His laughter. His adorable energy. He was incredibly kind, hardworking, and brave.

And it’s okay if he had days he wasn’t. It’s okay to be lost, to be tired, to just want a break. It’s okay to feel bad.

Rest in peace, Moon Bin, you are one with the stars. I will end off with a poem I wrote.

On Grief
I plucked at grief
like a lone person fighting this beast,
lambasting what it did to me.
The lights seared hot, and underneath the wooden planks, a hollow structure.
The beast is darkness, chasing at our heels through the forest,
and we flee, look around and spit at it,
clutch any branch and fling.
Everywhere else, the trees chanted in their chorus,
their branches so tightly intertwined no light would seep through.
‘Shred it, feed it to the dogs.
Paint your skin, camouflage, move your muscles, and cut your tongue,
to be one of us.’
Their chants, like deafening sirens, paralysing.
I looked at grief,
and like a lone person,
I slowed down, and knelt down,
and held its hand.