Suicidal thoughts and how to overcome them

Francis Ikuerowo Featured, Health & Lifestyle 16/10/2023

I once had suicidal thoughts for a couple of days. And from this experience I can write that the reason some people commit suicide is not a thing of how significant or mighty the event that happened to them is.

And it’s rather shallow of people to say things like “why must someone commit suicide because he had a Carry Over?”, “because his boyfriend/girlfriend broke up with him/her”, “so because he hasn’t got an admission yet, he resorts to taking his life” and then you move to “I’ll never do this I’ll never do that…”

While I salute your moral resilience, I must also tell you not to say ‘never’. If it never happens to you, do not judge; and if it ever happened to you, write a story to tell others how it felt.

What I found out from my fleeting experience is that when you’ve held yourself to the highest of your ideals, and you’ve acted in the truest, purest form of the values that define you, then something slips along the way, it’s hard to deal with your breaking ego at that point. Then the feeling of emptiness sips in and you gradually begin to lose your worth and self-importance.

When you’ve acted in the fairest manner possible in your dealings with others, then you get betrayed, it damages your ego and you start breaking slowly. At this point, it may appear that nothing else matters again.

When you’ve always acted well in the estimation of other people and have hinged your worth and self-importance on what other people think and say you are, then you slip one day, and you feel the whole world will never forgive you hence your life has no meaning anymore. Because you’ve failed in the eyes of people who attach meanings to your existence.

Another way to see this is that when you’ve endured some certain pains for longer than usual and it appears you’ve ‘lost’ everyone around you, people who do no longer understand your plight or are dealing with their own lives, you start harbouring the thoughts that perhaps the pains of leaving here is lesser than that of staying. “And actually, when you die, you won’t remember you once lived,” I said. It’s that simple, yet powerful.

However, you have to understand that it’s okay to fail. And you’re still going to fail–many times. And I’m trying not to sound motivational at this juncture.

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It’s okay to embarrass yourself at some point in your life. It’s okay to lose everything! You may have to get comfortable with losing all and starting all over again. I think life is designed this way, too. And pick the lessons that come with it.

You have to come to this unpleasant realization that you won’t always be or act your truest self always. That once or twice, you’ll fail yourself and others and this will hurt you and others badly because life simply happens to you.

You have to understand that the universe is not designed to work in your favour always. No, it’s not. Life will never and can’t be fair.

When the feeling of emptiness starts sipping in, please take a deep breath and remind yourself that this is a phase and it’s a temporary one. I won’t tell you to surround yourself with positive people, but please do if you can.

I will tell you to find the strength to live in greater purpose—that of simply breathing. Just breathe, deeply. And do this every day. I think being able to breathe is still a beautiful thing. Because trust me, at this point it looks as if the whole universe had conspired against you.

Perhaps you have to start (re)defining who you are outside of material stuff–grades, possessions, expectations from other people, people’s words, and you name it (you yourself know this). Your life still matters. Even when those things and persons are gone. Remember those beautiful days you carried yourself about on the streets in childlike innocence, oblivious of life and its attendant worries. Remember those good old days you were happy, eating, and with friends and families and nothing else matters but the joys of simply being yourself and living in the present.

If you still got your whole life figured out and beautiful, imagine the worst possible thing that can happen to you, and see how it’d make you feel. Then, however it makes you feel, change it to that which will make you LIVE when if eventually happens.

Finally, you have to develop a life mantra for yourself. Mine is “If I cast then I cast, anything wey wan sup go sup”, and then I go about my daily life, believing that one day it will end somewhere. Mark my word somewhere. But I’m not taking my life yet. I’m not ending it by myself. Not today nor tomorrow nor many years after. For someday it would make sense to me.

Please share to your friends and families who need to read this.