Female university students discuss suicide prevention: Lifting the mask

On October 28, Kimberly Teelucksingh’s suicide shocked many. Why did the youth ambassador and former beauty queen, who once took part in a youth parliament debate, do it? But this is not the question to ask, and focus should be on prevention a group of female university students tells JANELLE DE SOUZA in this series.

When someone kills themselves, everyone wants to know about their lives and what happened to make them do it. At that point, it changes nothing. Instead, we should try to prevent suicide by talking to each other and showing compassion, even if a person seems to be happy.

This was the conclusion of 14 female university students, ages 20 to 28, when they covered the topic of depression and suicide in a psychology class after the death of 24-year-old Kimberly Teelucksingh on October of this year.

The story touched them personally, as many of them were going through some form of depression, and 11 of them had contemplated suicide at some point in their lives.

Teelucksingh was a member of Youth Ambassadors of Trinidad and Tobago, a former Miss India/Trinidad and Tobago finalist, and an Opposition member in the Youth Parliament in 2010.

Her family and friends believed she hung herself at her Princes Town home a few hours before graduating from the University of West Indies (UWI) with a degree in law.

However, it was later revealed that Teelucksingh had stopped attending UWI, St Augustine, where she was a student at the Faculty of Social Sciences, since the 2013/2014 academic year.

Yet, her friends and family believed she had been attending classes, completing assignments and preparing for exams.

Her father said she had bought a graduation dress and was looking forward to getting her degree.

One student, Leslie (all names have been changed) told Sunday Newsday she had been following Teelucksingh on Instagram and was impressed by her good looks and fashion sense.

“When I found out she committed suicide I was like, ‘Wow. This girl has everything,’ and to know it came to nothing... I realised that I alone am not masking my feelings. I am not happy.”

Christine said several questions were raised with Teelucksingh’s suicide: What forced her to live a double life?

Why did she believe she had to do that in the first place? Why is it that nobody noticed?

Why would she buy a dress for a graduation she wasn’t even a part of?

“Now we want to know about her parents, we want to know about her boyfriend, everything. But why do we want to know now?

“Now is not the time to know. It’s too late now. We can’t bring her back by knowing the cause.”

They said while they had not gone to the extremes as Teelucksingh, all of them had been masking their feelings, pretending to be fine, to be happy, to keep up appearances, even to their closest friends and family, when they were feeling anything but fine.

Leslie said the class helped her to realise she was not the only one with those feelings, she was not the only one who was “messed up,” and not the only one who wanted to kill herself.

“I realised every single person in this room is messed up and we are real good at masking.

“All of us deserve an award because we could real hide, and act, and pretend that we are happy.”

She said she was very thankful for the course as it allowed her to start working on managing her feelings and begin healing.

She believed it should be a course all university students were required to take in their first year.

All the women agreed and expressed their appreciation for the course.

Aashli said it made her a stronger person and continued to help her fight her everyday battles.

She plans to use the information in the future, when she had children, so that she would be able to be more understanding, relate to them, believe in them more, and guide her on how to deal with them effectively.

Christine said it opened her eyes to her feelings, she was learning how to express her emotions, understand them, and better deal with them. She also gained more respect, understanding and restraint when dealing with others now that she realised everyone had their own issues.

“This course has made me realise how much we fail each other. If someone is going through something we avoid the topic because we don’t want to upset each other but talking about it could help. Instead we might encourage each other positively,” said Hannah.

She said she realised the average person did not want to talk to suicidal people about killing themselves because they would not want to feel as if the talk pushed, swayed or consented to the suicide in some way if the person still committed suicide. She said people had to get out of that mindset and stop running from suicide and depression because talking could help someone.

What can be done?

Josanne advised parents not to wait until they see their children crying or sad to talk to them or ask them what was going on in their lives. They might seem to be happy but they could be acting.

Hannah believed definitions and symptoms of depression should be introduced at an early age in school. She said when she and her classmates initially had depressive and suicidal thoughts, they believed they were going crazy. She said the pressure and frustration of worrying if something was wrong with them added to the pressure of school, from parents, and the negative thoughts themselves.

“I think it’s very important for adolescents to understand that not every thought has to turn into an action. If they are having these thoughts they need to know it is important to find some way to express themselves, whether it is by talking to a parent or friend, a counsellor, even art, to understand they need to let it out. If they start to guide them into letting it out at a young age, this pressure wouldn’t build up and we wouldn’t see so many students committing suicide.”

She said people should be aware of symptoms of depression and suicidal thoughts which includes giving away personal items; detaching themselves from friends and family; and no longer doing things they liked to do.