On SUICIDE

September is Suicide prevention and mental health awareness month. And an incident that happened recently just accentuated why we’re in a critical condition and things are only going downhill.

Yesterday, a girl in Kigali jumped from Makuza peace plaza building and fell to her death.

In a number of letters she left, she mentioned all the stressors that have been happening and led her to that.

While this is heartbreaking; I was even more heartbroken by Rwandan’s reaction to the ordeal.

One acquaintance of mine mentioned how she will burn in hell. Others made memes about it. As she had mentioned that one of the reasons she did it was her lover’s rejection; they’re saying that “loving one who doesn’t love you is a ticket to Makuza’s” or “that no girl will be allowed in the building without showing proof that she’s in a loving relationship with someone”

This broke my heart on multiple occasion and I ended up cutting ties with a number of people.

It breaks my heart that our culture deemed community centered has failed someone to the point of contemplating and committing suicide.

In addition, she isn’t the only one; and this is the point where I tell my story.

The first time, it was a night in May and I had been struggling with depression for 3 months, mind you I didn’t know what depression was. In retrospective, I had a major depressive episode. It was to the point I would have random tremors, sleep too much ( as much as I could given school regulations), and saw no way out of the rabbit hole.

I took a metal wire we used in the physics lab and tried to strangle myself.

My heart raced, breath slowed and I had a bitter aftertaste. I kept pulling on the cord until I couldn’t anymore.

That night, I cried myself to sleep.

Since then, I have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder 2. One with major depressive apisodes and episodes of hypo mania.

I’ve had suicide ideation multiple times, however I reached out and received medical care.

I know for sure that had I died that night, I would have been at peace. However I wouldn’t have wanted to be turned into a meme.

People say that when you commit suicide, you transmit the pain you had to your loved ones. However, I digress. It’s true that they will feel an excruciating amount of pain but it’s nothing compared to the pain the person has to consider causing them such pain.

I’ll just end by saying that even though suicide is not the answer, do not invalidate experiences of those who decide it is their answer.