When your child choses suicide

Imagine a day you are summoned to your child’s school only to receive the news that they attempted to commit suicide. In the process, you’re told that your child also hurt other students or destroyed school property. Many will think of indiscipline and the best punishment to give the child; others will weigh the option of making the parent pay for the damages. Few will consider mental disorders, drug abuse or emotional blackmail. Lucy K Maroncha explores the relationship between suicide and mental health among the youth

Joyce Getachew, a 46-year-old mother of two has one regret that keeps her awake at night; had she taken her son’s threat more seriously, he would be alive today. She recalls how, at the slightest provocation, the then 11-year-old Standard Seven pupil would proclaim that he would one day end “this useless life.” Joyce, a widow who runs a cereals shop, had shared the threat with the boy’s teachers and with some of her friends, but they all had dismissed the threat as mere intimidation.

“Serious suicidals don’t even talk about it,” Joyce’s friends had consoled her. They advised her to tell her son that no one would buy his threats and if he feels that his life was so useless, he could as well make good the threat. “He will then understand that you’re not intimidated,” they had advised. So one day, during the holidays, when Joyce caught her son trying to climb an avocado tree behind their house with a rope around his neck, she just smacked him and told him that his threats were immature.

“If you were serious, you wouldn’t have done it where you are sure to get help,” she had reprimanded the boy. However, two weeks later, the boy’s body would be found in the dormitory by other students. Post-mortem results revealed that he consumed a poisonous substance. He was in a boarding school and had complained of a headache the previous day and had even gone to hospital. That’s probably when he got the chance to buy the drug. The following day, he complained of still feeling sick and had remained in the dormitory after the other students had gone to class. He then got the opportunity to take his life.

His story is not different from that of Marritia Mukindia’s daughter. Mother and her teenage daughter had just shared an exciting chat on career choices. The daughter looked lively that day and there was nothing suspicious about her behaviour. “Mom, if you need me, I will be in my bedroom,” she had said. Those were the last words Marritia ever heard from her daughter. When she went to the bedroom two hours later to call the Form Three girl for lunch, she was shocked to find her body lifeless, having strangled herself with a bed sheet.

“She didn’t leave a suicide note or show any signs that she was upset with anything,” says Marritia who adds that the sight of her daughter’s body still haunts her four and a half years later. To date, Marritia, 40-year-old divorced mother of three who runs a daycare centre, regrets that many people believe that she prompted the death of her daughter. She narrates how other parents avoided her and how her other two children who were still in primary school were isolated because “they were bad company.”

According to experts, most teens who attempt suicide do not have the actual intention of killing themselves but are para-suicide victims. Parasuicide is an attempted suicide without the actual intention of killing oneself.

Research studies have shown that many teens who commit suicide are usually on a para-suicide mission, sometimes in an effort to attract attention from their teachers, parents or their peers. Others might attempt to play a joke to see their target’s reactions but the joke may be fatal, harming not only the individual but also the people around them.

A research abstract by Becky Wanjiku Wanyoike on suicide among university students in Kenya cites poor academic performance resulting from drug and alcohol abuse as a major contributor. In other circumstances, as shown by Psychology Today, students suffering from exam anxiety disorder can also be victims of para-suicide where they can harm themselves or destroy school property in a bid to avoid the exams. The case of a student who torched a dormitory at Moi Girls High School, Nairobi few weeks ago killing ten girls, isn’t a new phenomenon among students. In a similar incident, Julietta, a Form Two student in Kilifi, would have poisoned the entire school had the gateman not spotted her rushing out of the school kitchen looking suspicious.

When he asked her to stop and she declined, he pounced on her and escorted her to the office of the teacher on duty. Upon being searched by the school head girl, 20 empty sachets of rat poison were found under her bra. It emerged that she had poured poison in all the jars the cooks had arranged for the students’ porridge for breakfast. Cleverly, she knew that the cooks would just pour the porridge in the jars without checking. The Form Two girl later confided that her schoolmates had giggled at her when a male teacher embarrassed her during assembly. She, without remorse, narrated how she had planned to kill them all and later commit suicide. Her teachers however described her as a quiet girl who never looked like she would ever hurt anybody.

When her parents hired a psychologist, Julietta was referred to a psychiatrist and it was established she had mental disorder. Julietta finally confessed that she had been on narcotics long before she joined high school hence her withdrawal from other students. Though she was transferred to a day school where her parents could monitor her, Julietta’s mother says that she is ever worried that her daughter may try to harm herself or other members of their family in future.

Attempted suicide however is a criminal offence in Kenya, as Edward Mwenda, a Nairobi-based lawyer explains. “A suspect has to appear before a judge who, if in doubt, will send the suspect for mental evaluation by two independent psychiatrists,” says the lawyer.

Suicide attempt cases are offences against the government and though an individual can plead guilty to the charge, a judge may not automatically convict him/her before mental assessment to determine if the suspect was in a stable mental state at the time of the offence. The advocate further says that most criminal laws were borrowed from England, yet 56 years after the attempted suicide offense was decriminalised in England, Kenya still holds onto it.

“Perhaps it is time for Kenya to rethink the laws, and more importantly, give more attention to the question of mental health,” Mwenda suggests. Dr Kevin Wamula, a psychiatrist at Mathare Teaching and Referral Hospital confirms that para-suicide is indeed common among the youth.

He adds that when the court sends a suspect to a psychiatrist to determine if they are mentally fit to stand trial, the two embrace a remarkable relationship where the suspect finds empathy and a person willing to listen to their side of the story. They narrate the circumstances which led them to want to end their lives without the fear of judgement or prejudice.  Dr Wamula says that the hospital has a Forensic Clinic that runs in the Maximum Security Unit (MSU) which is under Kenya Prisons Service (KPS), a department within the Ministry of Interior and Coordination.

“When they are in the Forensic Clinic, they cease to be suspects or perpetrators and become patients,” he says. Psychiatrists, the doctor explains, look beyond the rigidity of the law with an eye of compassion and empathy. “Attempting to take one’s life can be broadly classified into suicide and para-suicide,” the expert says and adds that, para-suicide is usually a cry for help.

He reiterates that mentally ill suspects, especially the youth, get a chance to tell their story afresh to doctors without the fear of legal consequences. This, the doctor explains, is because the psychiatrist’s work is not to gather evidence against them but to evaluate their mental capacity to stand trial. The case of Abijah, a 13-year-old Form One student was at first stunning to his parents before they understood it was a mental disorder. He would wake up in the middle of the night and set the cattle shed on fire and start calling for help. This happened a few times and the boy’s father was suspicious about why his son was always the first one to notice the fire.

He employed a watchman who caught the boy in the act. Abijah’s father was more shocked than annoyed. On being assessed by a psychologist, he was confirmed to have a conduct disorder, which is a type of child personality disorder associated with criminal acts. This disorder, experts say, is associated with future criminal activity, suicide and arson.