POLOKWANE – World Suicide Prevention Day was this year commemorated on September 10.
To create awareness around this sensitive issue, Polokwane Observer spoke to a 23-year-old woman from Polokwane who by the age of 18 had already tried to take her own life three times.
She still clearly remembers her first attempt, at the age of 12, which occurred after she discovered that the man who was raising her was not her biological father.
“This was just the first of many attempts and now that I look back, I didn’t really want to die. I needed to get my mother’s attention and get her to tell me the truth.”
Her mother, she said, discovered the suicide note she had written.
“She told me that I was not going to die from the tablets, but would be left sick and this is exactly what happened,” the woman said.
“My mother still has the note, she has kept it until this day. During the attempts that followed, I kept thinking how embarrassed I was after the first failed attempt. It was difficult going on with life, especially with suicidal thoughts. Sometimes I would see a speeding vehicle and the only thing that would stop me from jumping in front of it is the thought of being paralysed.”
Her experience, she said, made her realise that in many families the necessary attention is not paid to children’s emotional needs.
“It was only in my matric year that one of the teachers noticed my anguish and signed me up for counselling.”
Today, she wants to give parents this advice:
“Keep a close eye on your children and do not keep anything from them that might be in their best interest. My marks dropped, I stopped eating and I always locked myself in my room alone. No one noticed. At times I couldn’t even understand why I was depressed and why I wanted to end my life. For me it was more than just being dead, I wanted to never have existed because I felt that my life is of no value.”
She said that therapy was good for a while but when the excitement of getting better wore off she started cutting herself to ease the emotional pain with physical pain.
“This went on for years, it was a cycle. I would spend months moping around then I would gather the courage to kill myself but when that didn’t happen I would continue cutting myself. It was only when I fell pregnant with my son that I started looking at life differently, even though I also did not want to live at the time.”
Her advice to those who see no way out, is to find something worth living for.
