Why do people take the extreme step of ending their lives?

There are things that I have never understood in life. As the dynamics of the present world get more and more dense and intricate for sweet sanity to comprehend, my list of existential mysteries only gets longer. Even before the new inequities and disorder started plaguing my senses, the act of self-ruin by people, more specifically by suicide, has puzzled me no end and is still something hard for me to wrap my mind around.

Reports of two young Indian mothers, one in Dubai and the other in Australia taking the ultimate step last week brought the question back to me about the idea of suicide being the ‘last resort’ in life for distressed souls. We may never know from those who have departed in such a tearing hurry about the real reasons for them to choose the baleful path to freedom, but I have often wondered — given a chance to return to life, would they grab their new lease and confess that it was a horrendous mistake to have tossed things away the first time?

The closest I have come to having a conversation on this was with a friend going through a substantial amount of difficulty both in his personal and professional set ups. In a very brief chat, he disclosed to me that he had recently come dangerously close to the precipice, but had by dint of luck gained control over the impulse to quit and had since then covered sufficient emotional ground to dismiss it as a passing phase of inner imbalance. The circumstances that triggered the sinister thought hadn’t changed much, but the worst was over as far as the suicidal tendency was concerned.

We have all been through patches that make us frantically search for an easy exit from the mess we are in, some way to escape the tyranny of the rough times, but rarely do we allow the ‘S’ word to dominate our thoughts as a viable option. That my friend had indeed thought of it convinced me first hand that people do get pushed far enough to consider it seriously. The redeeming point, however, is the fact that he had retracted in time and had resolved to give the devils in his life their due with an extended lifespan.

It is hard to determine what makes people take the final leap of death — some leaving their dependents in the lurch and some taking them along as partners in crime. Is it really the end of the road for them, like it seems for the poor farmers in India who are intimidated by the system and society into reaching for the rope? Or is it an impetuous thought implemented recklessly?

Equally puzzling to me is the psyche of those who have been through endless misery but still want to go on, enduring every bit of suffering, clutching at straws and not letting the adversities make them call it quits. I have often watched with great perplexity the footage of refugees arriving at the European shores day after day to a bleak future, having nothing except a bundle of nervous hope to sustain them on their long journey to uncertainty. The thousands who are loaded into the inflatable boats to cross the Mediterranean sea and the scores who spend lives in refugee tents in the desert hinterlands are clear testimony to the fact that one’s will to live can be robust enough to supplant even the most obvious perils and treacherous paths, including starvation, abuse, harsh weather and callous death. Their doggedness demonstrates that the longing for life is greater than the privations it brings, and it leaves me amazed time after time.

From where I am now, in a zone of fair comfort except for life’s minor annoyances, it is presumptuous to pass judgments on those that are taking life’s hardest knocks. We have no moral right to evaluate the morass in the lives of those who leave a long trail of questions and a legacy of sorrow in their wake. It is perhaps easy for those in a position of relative wellbeing to sermonise on the malevolent and negative connotations of suicide. But only he who wears the shoe knows how it pinches. It could be a weak moment’s consequence that perhaps could have been averted, or a well-considered act of ‘safe passage’ from a woe that the world may never fully understand. What drives some to the edge and beyond, and what holds some back in place despite it all are still mysteries to me. One could simply put it down to fortitude and the abject lack of it. Yet there is something achingly apologetic about having to forcefully give up on life before life willingly gives up on us.

Asha Iyer is a Dubai-based writer

What drives some to the edge and beyond, and what holds some back in place despite it all are still mysteries