C-U-L-P-A-B-L-E Chilling accounts of how parents, society worsen suicide cases in adolescents, children

The spate of suicide among adolescents and children appears to have assumed a worrisome dimension in recent times. But, not many people are aware that their actions and remarks might have at one time or the other been responsible for why some of the suicide cases happen. INNOCENT DURU, in this report, examines the various ways parents, relations and other members of the society unconsciously push people into committing suicide through their actions.

HAS it ever occurred to you that your action might have been responsible for why a young person around you committed or attempted to commit suicide? Before you rush to say no, take time to read and ruminate over the following true life events that made many young people to commit suicide or attempted to do so before they were rescued.

“There was a girl that was being called unprintable names because she was short.  The friends and people around her were making fun of her. Before we knew it, she took her own life,” that was how the Executive Director of Strengthening Hope in Humanity (SHH), a non governmental organisation based in Lagos State, Pastor Salami  Oluwaseun, began his various distressing encounters with young people who have either taken their own lives or been saved from doing so.

Shortly before the incident, Oluwaseun said: “Someone gave me her (the victim’s) mobile number to counsel her.  At that point, I didn’t know that the matter had become so serious in her.  I spoke with her and thereafter, she wasn’t responding to my calls anymore. I called the person who linked me up with her and she said that they lost her. Shocked by the remark, I asked to know what she meant that they lost her and she frankly said that the young girl had committed suicide! I was devastated by the sad news.”

Does that give you any cause for concern? That was just one of his numerous experiences. “Bullying is one of the causes of suicide. This could be verbal or emotional. It is one of the causes of suicide. This could be verbal or emotional, Oluwaseun said, adding:  “There was a boy with a flat nose. His name is Busola but people chose to call him Imuoro (horrible nose). After sometime, he lost confidence in himself and was unable to do things that he could ordinarily do.

“In his own case, I intervened early enough before he could get to the point of committing suicide. I didn’t just address him alone, I also addressed his friends and that ended the challenge.

“Bullying exists everywhere; work places, church, home etc. When a female boss talks down a male subordinate frequently, she kills him psychologically and if care is not taken, he could commit suicide.

The decision to commit suicide doesn’t just happen in a day. It gradually builds up over a period of time.”

He added: “There is also what we call psychological bullying. A young man took his life because of this.  He had been asking his friends for some financial assistance but they didn’t respond. One day, he went out with them to a drinking joint.  They drank and ate suya but he didn’t take any of that.  He saw that the assistance he had been asking them for was just insignificant compared to what they were spending at the joint.

“Three days later, one of the friends went to check him in the house and found that the doors were locked from inside. When the door was eventually forcefully opened, they saw the guy dangling on a rope he tied to the ceiling fan to commit suicide.”

One of the consultants managing the drug abuse unit at Neuro-Psychiatry Hospital, Aro, Abeokuta, Ogun State, Dr. Sunday Amosu, also shared another experience.  “I had a case recently where something was missing in a classroom. The item was taken by a young girl who later returned it. After she did that, hell was let loose in the school as everybody began to castigate her.  They didn’t see the good side of her action.  The girl had attempted suicide twice. I had to advise the parents to take her away from that school.”

A marriage and family counsellor, Tosin Eyitayo, said the state of the home front is critical to addressing the spate of suicide in the country.

“Something happened in my child’s school last week while I was there.  There was a boy in the school who was always not going to school with his homework. They flogged him and he kept doing the same thing.  On this fateful day, the teacher gathered some of the pupils and instructed them to be singing abusive songs for the boy to make him sober and ultimately change.

“I called the attention of the teacher and asked if she had taken time to call the boy and ask him questions? She said I shouldn’t mind the boy, that he just wanted to be stubborn. I said something must have been responsible for the problem.

“I later did my findings and found out that the mother of the boy had left the family.  The boy could have been doing all that he was doing to attract the attention of people around him, so that they could understand his plight but it was unfortunate that rather than take pains to engage the boy, the teacher chose to add salt to his injury. If care was not taken, such a child could have taken his life because he was facing challenges both at home and in the school.”

Possible solution to menace

Proffering solution to the menace, Olwaseun said the idea of banning or regulating the sales of a popular insecticide used in recent times by people who committed suicide is not the way out. “It is not the solution because there are other things that can kill or be used to commit suicide.  I once had a colleague who poured petrol on his own body and set himself ablaze.  Would you ban the sale of petrol because of that? Or would you stop people from using knife because some people used it to commit suicide?

“Individuals need to find hope in themselves before external help can come.  You have to have hope and trust in God that tomorrow will be better.

“If you have any issue disturbing you, or having strange thoughts, report it to somebody you can trust. Don’t be idle and lonely at every given point in time.  Try and be in the company of people you love.  People should stay away from alcohol and drugs because they don’t help.”

“Some of these children,” she added: “don’t have a good relationship with their parents and a result, they don’t have anybody to talk to about their challenges.

“Alcoholism and drug abuse also lead to suicide in the long run because it doesn’t make them to think straight. Addiction to these makes the abusers to look for permanent solution like suicide to a   temporary problem. At every point in time, when you bring 10 depressed people out, eight would have thought about suicide, three would have attempted it and one would have committed it.”

He advised the government to improve the state of the economy to enhance the living standard of the people which, he said, has contributed in no small measure to the spate of suicide in the country. “

Also giving a panacea to the problem, Dr. Amosu, said: “Suicide has been reported globally and not just only in Nigeria even though it appears to be well reported now. One of the things we need to note is that if there is more reporting, it means the awareness level is higher now unlike in the past when people were hiding it.

“Adolescents and children are not free from adult illnesses like depression. They are prone to depression.  He may not be showing symptoms like an adult but you will notice that such a child will become withdrawn.

“If a child continues to bed wet  at age of 12 and above and you are laughing at him or  beating and humiliating him,  he would just say, ‘there is no atmosphere of love here; let me go to another place because they wont miss me here.”

He added: “The attitude of our parents also affects these children. For instance, if there is one that is not doing so well and the parents are comparing him with the older or younger sibling who is doing well, it could push the child to committing suicide. When parents fail to show love to such a child and begin to make critical comments about him, all the child needs to do is to learn that another child somewhere committed suicide using XYZ chemical. Once he knows that, he would use it. Sometimes, they would leave a suicide note and sometimes they don’t.

“When children fail exams, what is the attitude of the parents?  Are we very supportive when things don’t go the way we expect?  Parents’ expectations should not be too high.  We should also be realistic to know that no two kids are the same.

“Again, if kids are in an atmosphere where there is no love and everything appears to be hostile to them, suicide can be thought of.  Parents should show love and befriend their kids so that they could confide in them about whatever is happening to them. Sometimes, the only time a child would be able to talk is when he is in school with his colleagues. But nothing like that happens at home.  They may bottle this aggression inward.”

Sometimes, Amosu further said: “Suicide is said to be an aggression bottled inward. Instead of directing their aggression outside, they direct it inward by getting rid of their own life.  We can’t absolve parents from this issue of suicide in children unlike in adults.

“Drug abuse also predisposes young people to suicide. Young people who have terminal illnesses may also want to commit suicide just like an adult.

“How knowledgeable are the teachers who are taking care of these children?   How do we manage children that are delinquent and those from broken homes?  Are we also castigating and leaving them to their problems or are we providing the shoulder on which they can lean on so that we as counsellors can advise them? Teachers too must be knowledgeable about the warning signs.”

“Like I said earlier, there are some tell-tale signs that you will see to begin to suspect that something is wrong. A child who mixes well could begin to withdraw. A jovial child all of a sudden would not want to see anybody again. Some parents will see this and tell the child, ‘keep pretending, when you are through, you will let me know’.  Some of them will not be through with the condition as the parents expect before they end it all.”

Corroborating Amosu’s remark, Tosin, the marriage and family counsellor, said: “Negligence and insensitivity of parents to the plight of their children contribute immensely to the challenge.  Before such a problem would happen, there would be tell tale signs.