By: Jack Yan

Jack Yan — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 23:14:33 +0000

Anon, thank you for providing the context and personal view that I could not: I really appreciate it. I think it’s helpful for our readers, too.
My guess was that when the decision is made, it isn’t founded on rationality. I see from your experience that it was sudden—eight hours is indeed a short time—but that it can be overwhelming.
For what it’s worth, I am glad you had the chance to put things right in your life and that you could share your experience with us. You were obviously meant to continue with your life, if one believes in fate, and that the landlady was there at the right place at the right time.

By: Anon

Anon — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:41:02 +0000

Having attempted suicide when I was 19, after failing my interview at Oxford University, perhaps I can shed light as to why someone that age might do such a thing. I felt like a failure, like I had let everyone else down and had no future. My disappointment took 8 hours to develop into thoughts of ending it all. I didn’t tell anyone what I was feeling and didn’t show it. I went to college as usual and went to the pub with friends. I even ate dinner with my landlady & her family. Then I went to my room, took a bottle of paracetamol and slit my wrists, got into bed and cried myself to sleep. I left my bedside light on by mistake and my landlady came in on her way to bed to turn it off and found me. She called her GP who came immediately. They tried to wake me, bandaged my arms & pumped my stomach. She didn’t take me to hospital as she said she didn’t want my mother to find out what I had done. I don’t know if the GP reported it, it was the 80s and things were different. The next morning she came into my room and told me that there was never to be a repeat of that situation.
I didn’t really ever think of the consequences, just that I had lost the will to keep going. I would never have thrown myself off a building. I don’t like physical pain and couldn’t have done something like that. I had enough mental hurt and I wanted to stop the pain, not feel more of it. I did write my mother a note. My landlady destroyed it, along with removing my razors. She asked me to leave at the end of the month, which I did. I went into a shared house and things improved.
The pressure of expectation can be huge. Not living up to your own expectations can be devastating. If this young girl really did kill herself, then it was probably a momentary lapse into total despair. Had she survived, she might have gone on to try again or completely snap out of it, as I was fortunate enough to be allowed to do. Saying that people should talk about things doesn’t really help. What helps is if you are not made to feel that the world begins or ends with your personal achievements or lack of, especially at the age when most teenagers are having the transition into adulthood, which is confusing enough. You suddenly see beyond your immediate surroundings and that can terrify you.

Comments on: ‘Why?’ may be a futile question in Ruslana Korshunova suicide

By: Jack Yan

By: Anon