The one question everyone has asked without exception, that they ache to have answered more than any other, is simply: why? Why did their friend, child, parent, spouse, or sibling take their own life?
Even when a note explaining the reasons is found, lingering questions usually remain: yes, they felt enough despair to want to die, but why did they feel that?
A person’s suicide often takes the people it leaves behind by surprise (only intensifying survivor’s guilt for failing to see it coming).
A man in his 20’s on Saturday, September 3, jumped from a sixth-floor building in an alleged suicide attempt.
A video posted on social media showed a man identified as Kalule Mustafa falling down from the rooftop of Mabirizi Complex in Kampala, Uganda as onlookers screamed in shock.
He had earlier been seen on the building’s rooftop standing before his fall. Miraculously the man survived the fall after crashing into a car parked on the road.
Mustafa was rushed to Mulago hospital in Kampala for treatment after sustaining serious injuries after the fall with the car he crashed into getting badly damaged.
Kampala police spokesman denied the man tried to commit suicide and said he could have fallen accidentally.
“There is no evidence that he wanted to commit suicide, we suspect that he just fell off from the building,” the police spokesman said.
Published 15 October 2015, when 251 Australian men aged 18 years and over who had made a suicide attempt 6–18 months prior were asked what stopped them from attempting suicide, results from the online survey indicated that the most strongly endorsed factor was by far thinking about the consequences for family
This theme of concern for others was apparent in other strongly endorsed factors: just over half agreed or strongly agreed that not wanting to put the burden on someone finding them was a barrier to suicide, followed by half of the respondents endorsing not wanting people to feel it was their fault.
More than one-third said that having a friend or family member express their concern and then follow up with support stopped them from attempting suicide. When asked to nominate the most important factor, consequences for family was again the most frequently nominated at 32%.
