Mayowa Ogundele: What makes suicide an option? (Y! Superblogger)

by Mayowa Ogundele

Up until 2014, suicide, for me, was an alien concept. Of course, I must have heard of a few cases here and there… mostly of unrequitted love.. but such reports are rare in Nigeria media.

The unpopular wish to be done with life is however not as shocking as the will to actually take one’s own life.

Suicide is real. Young people wanting to end their own lives is a reality, an ugly one, but one all the same. People not seeing any light (no matter how faint) at the end of the dark tunnel is a reality.

I remember how a young God-fearing lady had opened up to me about wanting to quit life. She had been following my tweets and one day, she reached out. Thank God she didn’t continue tobkeep her struggles to herself.

Today, her struggles may not all be all over but she is fighting… and WINNING.

As I considered what to write in this post, several things came my way, on social media. First, I found out September 10 is World Suicide Prevention Day.

I also found this comment on suicide.

suicide

As logically sound as this commenter’s argument may be. Suicide is not the answer to life’s problems. That’s my take.

I remember now that my earliest knowledge about suicide was it being part of the Yoruba culture.

A king or warrior was either sent on excile or he committed suicide, by hanging on a tree, for a wrong doing or for losing a battle – in the case of a warrior.

Suicide is real. Young people wanting to end their own lives is a reality, an ugly one, but one all the same. People not seeing any light (no matter how faint) at the end of the dark tunnel is a reality.

 

I don’t want to trivialise or make light the circumstances that lead people to suicide but when I think of a young white who committed suicide after being bullied online….

One cannot help but wonder. Is it that we have a lot of people who are emotionally weak?

Is it that people who want to give up do not have people who care around them?

Is it that they commit suicide because they never opened up about their problems?

What do you make of this situation…

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Mayowa Ogundele is a journalist and a news presenter at Channels Television, She blogs atohluwamayowa.wordpress.com and tweets from @Ohluwamayowa

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

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