Getting to understand the reality of suicide

Tash Reddy.

Tash Reddy.

Published Apr 11, 2018

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Opinion - Scandal, sensational, suspense - yes - that apparently sums up suicide except it’s so far from the truth.

I remember the sound of the stamp on the paper saying “ADMITTED”. 

The report said the patient was a danger to herself and needed intense psycho-therapy.

I was made to remove all my clothes for a gown. 

I had to remove the shoe laces from my takkies as they posed a threat and even had the clips and hair band taken out my hair. 

My bag was searched, and everything from belts to my shaving kit, and even my nail clipper was taken out.

I was pushed down the cold hallway to the room I would be spending the next few months in. 

Yes, I was a patient at Townhill Mental Hospital aka Fort Napier.

As I walked through the corridors, I saw the numerous cells with dishevelled women hanging onto the bars screaming in agony. 

I walked past the men who paced and talked to themselves. 

All I heard was anguish, tears, screaming, wailing and people who had lost every ounce of their self-control and worth.

Was I scared? Absolutely not. Instead, I was rebellious. 

I knew that nothing would stop me from achieving my goal and that was to kill myself. 

The pain inside far outweighed any of the terror I was witnessing.

That first time I slit my wrists in the bath tub, I was so convinced my plan was working. 

After all, there was no reason to live. I was a fat, ugly, stupid girl, who could never succeed at anything.

No one could ever love me, and the one person I gave my heart to shattered it into a million pieces. 

I felt humiliated, broken, not good enough, a waste of oxygen and a failure in every sense of the word.

I was only 18. I knew my parents loved me so much, but I was an embarrassment to them. 

They would never ever be proud of me. I couldn’t do anything right and caused them so much heartache with all my bouts of depression anyway. 

Yes, they didn’t need a useless child like me.

I had my entire life ahead of me and the world at my feet, but I didn’t want to be part of the world anymore. 

I was about to escape this life which had only ever given me devastating heartbreak.

But I woke up in a hospital bed and I was furious. Why was I still alive? Why? I didn’t need the pain medication. 

I wanted to die, and so I began planning again.

In my time at that mental institution, which is a top secret in the family because of the stigmas attached, I witnessed some of the most incredible people.

The pain inside their hearts was so overwhelming. 

Their suffering, so all-consuming compared to mine, and in those moments of pain, my heart started to rebel against me.

I no longer wanted to die. Instead, I chose to use my pain to remind me that I am alive and that in itself means I have significance.

Our community has been infiltrated by it, day in and day out with our loved ones ending their lives. 

Why? Not because they were not loved but because various experiences made them feel hopeless, and it filled them with debilitating sadness.

Then there’s the worst part. First comes the pity and the typical “shame - how sad”, followed by the theories based on suspense - must be boyfriend or girlfriend problems, maybe the parents were abusing them, maybe they were in trouble. 

Maybe - maybe - maybe! Oh and then the judgement. How selfish was the person to kill themselves? And the most heart wrenching comment - they are such cowards.

We are so quick to say they “committed suicide”. 

Criminals commit crimes. “Committed suicide” is a term that needs to be expunged. 

It is inaccurate, insensitive and strongly inappropriate. It’s what contributes to the ugly stigma associated with suicide and its survivors. 

A better term is “died by suicide”.

What’s sadder is not once outside of the so-called empathy which lasts only for those few days after the tragedy does anyone bother to understand the reality of suicide or try to understand the heart of the person who killed themselves - who believed life was not worth living - who had lost all hope.

“Suicide” is not the fear of dying, but the fear of living. It is when the screams inside your mind are not silent, but violent and it brings to the fore the deep insecurities, which begin to eat away at your soul.

The world around becomes too much. 

There is no greater suffering which drives a person to commit suicide. 

Suicide defines the moment when the mental and emotional pain far exceeds the human capacity to bear it. 

It represents the abandonment of all hope.

As a community; mental illness and depression is considered a weakness, right? People refer to it as lame excuses to get attention. “Snap out of it!” is what is expected.

It’s not spoken about but rather looked down on and talked about in quiet whispers coupled with various derogatory speculations.

I am still labelled a mental case by many families.

What are we, “the damned depressed”, supposed to do - put on a false front and pretend all is right with the world - that’s how it’s meant to be. Right?

It boggles my mind that we can tell people we have cancer or some other health issue affecting other parts of our body and the matter is met with such love, empathy and support, yet mention depression and you are labelled and looked down on. 

It’s almost as if the head and mind is not part of the body and yet the body only survives because of it.

Why are we missing the signs? We miss them because we live in denial and the demands of a society in which we have to constantly prove we are perfect, and yet no one is.

When are going to start paying attention to what’s happening to those around us on a mental and emotional level? 

How long are we as a community going to run and hide from the reality of depression? 

And for how long are we going to stigmatise matters that need our love the most?

Let’s judge not a pain we can never understand because it’s not something we had to endure.

I think this poem sums it up beautifully.

“Yes I was sad to leave you and to leave everyone I loved so much. Know that I feel good and my soul is enriched now with new learning and understanding. 

"My suffering has ceased. Everything happened as it was supposed to. You could not have stopped or changed anything. 

"There was no other way. I was not weak, I was not selfish and I was not a coward. I was just in too much pain.”

At the end of it all sometimes it easier to choose death because the pain overrides our ability to choose life. 

When that happens, our first priority is not to judge, label or create a bigger stigma and speculation, but to support, love and help those survivors of a suicide bid, so they can choose life.

* Tash Reddy is an entrepreneur, radio and film producer and the founder of Widowed South Africa.

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