I just read an article, ‘Inside a Suicide’ in Femina (7 Sept 2011 issue). It says, 1 suicide happens every 4 minutes in India. Stress & depression are the main reasons.
In Mar 2011: A woman, in Bombay, had thrown her kids from the 19th floor and then jumped to death. I could see the scene flash across my mind - the fear in the kids’ eyes’, the mother’s desperation & a moment later, their 3 lifeless bodies.
Why did she do something as horrendous as pushing her kids off the 19th floor? Why and when do we decide to commit suicide? Every suicide victim makes one last attempt at life. They wait for that one person, with whom they can talk and share their agony, somebody who could listen to them, and not judge, but just empathize.
If only someone, anyone listened! Isn’t that why they leave little notes – their last shot at being heard? Deep down, they all really want to live.
I’ve heard older couples talking about the “ups & downs” of their married life and how they braved it, and today stand as an example of an ideal marriage.
My “downs” were those 2 years right after marriage. My daughter was born in June 2006. The helplessness, and hopelessness, I felt in the months immediately after that, is something I’d never felt before.
I felt SO SO LONELY for the first time ever in my life that, within 5 months of her birth, I went into severe depression.
Office, husband's troubles, baby’s needs, no parents, no emotional support from spouse, no support from in-laws, house responsibilities, no sleep, house work, constant fights, baby’s constant wailing & crying, no proper food and care, family angle, everything seemed to come together and hang over my head like the Damocles’ sword.
Those were the only weak moments in my life where, I felt I can’t take it any longer; I wanted to end the trauma because no one cared for me anyways.
I missed my mother.
And then, one day, in sheer desperation, I found myself going to a medical store and asking for sleeping pills! He didn't give. He asked me for a doctor’s prescription.
I then planned that, I would try my luck, and go around asking one pill from every store, and once I had collected 36, I’d be set.
Why 36?!? Well, I had heard that you needed 36 for an overdose.
But I couldn’t get a single pill. No prescription!
I then thought of the fan. But I was a complete coward. I wanted a painless death. Hanging felt gruesome. You had to push the stool from under your feet! I could tie myself to the fan but pushing the stool away? No, no, I couldn’t do that.
I thought of the railway track and poison too but I chickened out!
But that wasn’t the first time I had thought of death, and been terrified by it.
I remember my bungee jump in 2005. I went up, very excited, and put on the safety gear, filled with anticipation for this once-in-a-lifetime experience. Standing at the edge of the board, I looked down. He said, “Now jump”. An inch further & I’d be plunging down, head first.
But at that moment, I just couldn’t propel my body any further. I still remember that ONE second of intense fear. Finally, he nudged me & I fell off.
Trust me, the actual hanging in the air isn’t as frightening as that one second just before you fall. That second is utterly, absolutely, terrifying.
I managed the courage to bungee jump but it takes another kind of courage to end one’s life. And in this case, to be a coward is a good thing. After all, God never tempts us beyond our point of endurance. No matter how bad the days seem, we can always walk through it, one day at a time; because life is too precious to waste on anyone or anything. And I, for one, love my life too much to let it go to waste.
