Mind the gap
Warning — This is an account of personal experience with suicide and If you are uncomfortable reading about suicide I urge you to stop here.
My dad had a major alcohol addiction problem and after years of struggle with it, at some point, he decided to stop his life. Whenever people ask me how my dad died my usual answer is a car accident, but in fact, he took his own life. My family didn’t have much information on his death, so we were told to not speak of it. My mother didn’t want it to be discussed in public and family circle. There was a feeling of embarrassment and fear of judgment from society. Because suicide has a high social stigma, the first reaction is to hide the tragedy.
From outside, my dad had everything sorted. He was an electronic engineer, and he was a good one. He had higher education, a family with two kids, good job. But he was addicted to alcohol and was never able to maintain a stable job or lifestyle. We reached a point, were his addiction became so unbearable that he was asked to leave our house. Eventually, he left to find a job in Mumbai and decided to stay with his relatives. Those days, there were no mobile phones and the only way we could reach him was through letters or through a public phone booth on the main road, which was a 10-minute walk from our house. He would call at that public booth, and we use to receive a message saying he will call again in 10 minutes. My mom used to walk hurriedly to the booth to talk to my dad. So our communication was minimal. There were times when we would not hear from him for months.
Soon after my 10th exam was over, one of the days I was preparing to leave home for a student camp, one of my relatives came and told me to cancel the trip. I remember being very baffled and angry for stopping me from going out for the camp as I was looking forward to it. Soon after I came to know that my dad died. It happened a month back and nobody knew what exactly happened. He was found dead in the railway tracks in some suburban Mumbai area. His body was already cremated near a police station because nobody claimed his body. So we never saw his body. We were completely unaware of what exactly happened to him. We speculated whether it was an accident or murder or was it a suicide. At that point, we realized we have received a letter from him a few weeks back and in the letter, he was sort of confessing about his intention of suicide.
For years my mom hid that letter from me and my sister. Recently I forced her to show me that letter. The letter clearly showed the words of a man who lost all his hopes. It was kind of difficult to go through it because for years I have always wondered what went wrong with my dad. What made him do such a drastic measure? I still don’t know what exactly was bothering him so much. Later I came to know that he had lost his mother to severe jaundice when he was very young. Maybe that's what led him to depression, addiction, and then to suicide.
After this incident, nobody talked about this incident in our family. We were met with silence and avoidance on this topic. Initially, I wasn’t affected much by this incident or so I thought. But eventually, it did affect me indirectly for years. People who die of suicide have stopped their pain but it affects the people around that person for a long time. Because everybody is trying to understand what exactly went wrong. We all have our speculations and interpretations. One tends to feel grief, guilt, anger, disappointment, and a lot of other emotions. It is a mixture of emotions that one is never prepared for. I have tried to tackle this alone for a very long time and it didn’t help. Simply because I didn’t have the tools or vocabulary to tackle the situation. Unfortunately, we are not taught the required skills for such situations or neither have easy access to proper support around mental health. It's just simply denied because of social stigma. Had my dad given a proper mental health check-up on time we could have avoided years of turmoil.
Later in my life at some point, I realized I needed professional help from a psychologist and decided for the consultation. Personally, that’s my proudest moment. I have acknowledged my need for help and taken action on it. It also made me realize reaching out to a professional psychologist helps. We have no shame in asking advice from experts in matters of money, career, marriage, etc. We are so keen on investing in education, insurance, and in all sorts of safety nets in our life. But why do we ignore mental health? Whoever sees your mental health problem as an over-sensitive excuse or do not find that important, let me tell you this, he or she is an ignorant person.
At times of difficulty, one gets so overwhelmed with emotions that there is a tendency to see things with the lens of grief and it constricts self-empathy and compassion. Getting a third person’s perspective helps to gather one’s dispersed thoughts. A professional person may not always solve your problems but they will equip you with tools and methods that will help you to cope with a difficult situation. They will help you to interpret your experiences in a constructive, positive, and healthy manner. Now and then, you will encounter difficulties and these tools will come handy.
Thankfully I am blessed with good friends who are my safety net. Not a lot of my friends know about this but whoever small number of people I have reached out gave me strength. I am grateful to meet each one them and knowingly or unknowingly they have helped me. They would simply aid me with an ear. And the most important person is my partner/husband. He is still my go-to person for my mental chatter and a person who has my back no matter what. At the least, if he couldn’t handle it, I believe he would frankly tell me to seek professional help.
And here I am all well and good. I am not rich or famous, neither have I acquired any great awards or groundbreaking success to my name. Most of the time I come across as an awkward deeply flawed person, but I am always trying to be a better version of myself every day. And I am pretty proud that I have sort of successfully overcome most of my difficult situations my life offered and I find my moments of blissful happiness now and then.
Even the strongest and most sort out person will go through times of despair. Everybody has there own struggles to overcome and reaching out for help is nothing to be ashamed of and it does not make one a failure. It shows one’s strength of character. Please understand that there is an irrational social stigma around mental health which tends to diminish our/your problems as a weakness. And this definitely needs to change.
So have self-compassion and do something that really brings you joy. Forget about people who judge you. Being honest with oneself is liberating. Don’t be too hard on yourself and you have more strength than you think you have.
Have a good and honest day.
