This letter is in response to a news item I read in the morning paper today which shook me to the core. “A 23 year old woman committed suicide after a small tiff with her husband. She jumped to her death from her eighth floor apartment leaving her eleven month old twin daughters behind”. Four such similar incidents have happened in last one month bringing the alarming truth to the fore. I know this is not the first time something like this has happened but it is happening way too frequently now. So I want to reach out to that mother who is still there contemplating and if you too have a friend who you feel can do with a friendly talk, please do share it with her. Who knows you might do a favour to her children.
Dear fellow mother
I know you are angry, hurt, disappointed and nothing seems worthy. I know this seems to be the most that you can take and the pain is getting beyond what you can bear. I know you feel that by taking your life, you’d put a stop to all of this but what if it is not true! What if the notion of ‘everything will be fine after I die’ is wrong! Nobody has been there, came back, and told you, right? You might feel the burden of this world on your shoulders and the indifference of your loved ones but before you take that jump, I want you to stop right there! Just be with me for few minutes and then you can decide. You can spare a few moments right?
I am not a mental health professional or a counsellor but I am a woman and a mother and I know that your husband might get enough shock from your death, which seems to be your only purpose but your children would lose their mother, they would lose their chance of experiencing motherhood as special as yours and they would never know you well enough.
I know you feel you have more pain than you can cope with right now. I know you think people feel you are in a comparatively better position than lot of other people who would never commit suicide but let them talk. Everyone is different. They might have their coping resources but you are done! And your feelings are taking the best of you. They might have parents, friends and few others who would not want to see them dead. And you don’t! But wait! You too have parents and few friends who would understand. I know you are thinking they wouldn’t and your situation is beyond repair but Trust me, it is not. I have been there. There was a time when I thought suicide was an only option to get out of this meaningless life but I didn’t want my kids to suffer and I knew nobody in this world would be able to give them what I can. So I stopped. I tried to increase my coping resources to deal with the pain. I made new friends; got a new life and trust me you can do all this too.
Leave that job if you want to, separate from that abusive man if he is the one driving you to suicide but stay alive. This is the most important part. You are the most important piece here.
Give it some more time like 24 hours. You don’t have to do it right away! Make a call to your best friend or to your mom/dad. Tell them you need them. Or go to a psychiatrist in any hospital. Just walk there like I once did and am I glad for that visit? Hell, yeah!
Believe me! You’d get over this. An argument between a husband and wife is like that never ending number. There is really no end to it. Also, above everything else, no men or argument in this whole wide world should be worthy enough to give your life up for.
No argument with anybody could be bigger than your children not having a mother. So before you get into that unstoppable rage, try to think about the faces of your parents, children and siblings and then make up your mind. I am sure you will stop and you will try one more time, to give life one more shot, for your children, for their future, to see them grow into beautiful people. You want to see your daughter on her wedding day and you do want to be with your son when he tells you that you are going to be a grandmother. I know, you do want to be in those moments and you can’t possibly miss these for death!
So dear mother, stop right there and pick up your child in your arms, look into those beautiful eyes and promise them that you’d do everything to make sure that her mother stays with her and she will take on this world for her sake! Go tell her that and then tell the same to yourself.
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telegraph.co.uk
guardian.com
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