I Think I Hate My Life (conclusion)
Last Tuesday made it exactly a year since I tried to kill myself. In fact I actually died; or rather I thought I had died. Sometimes I wonder if it’s the gods in my village that have taken an oath that my suffering must continue whether I like it or not.
I actually drank poison. A mixture of three deadly chemicals. One minute I was dead and all my troubles were finally over, the next minute I was awake (or so it seemed). Later on did I find out that I had been in a coma for over a week.
As I slowly regained consciousness, I faintly heard the voice of a little boy trying to call out to his mother. As I opened my eyes, I couldn’t help wondering if this was the hellfire my pastor had preached about over the years. But the first face I saw didn’t look like that of Satan (as I had imagined him).
A woman who looked a little above 30 was staring over my face and muttering some words in a language I couldn’t understand. “Where… where am I?” I managed to ask. The woman stopped whatever she was saying in that God forsaken language and replied me in pidgin English,”You don wake? Thank God ooo”.
A couple of minutes later, the wretched looking room was filled with other women and very dirty looking middle aged man who appeared to be my doctor. He examined me and gave the first woman instructions on how to take care of me.
Well, later on, they both took their time to explain to me on how they had found my body floating on a raft in a stream near their village. My heart was still beating and they did their best to keep me alive with herbs and local remedies. And for the first time in 8 days, I had finally woken up.
It took them a few more hours after I had told them what I did to myself, to realize that some parts of my body had been paralyzed as a result of the deadly poison mixture I had taken. They immediately started trying all they could to arrest and if possible, reverse the effects of the poison in my body.
Well, it took them another 3 months to try before I finally found a way to leave the village to a hospital. The hospital became my home for another three months. And now I’m with family, squatting in the boys’ quarters of a cousin’s place. Languishing in pain and living like a vegetable. The doctor’s say it might take another year before they can give me any hope of walking again.
The last I heard of my husband, Dayo, is that one 19 year old girl had gotten pregnant for him and was presently living in our house and wearing my old clothes. He wanted nothing to do with me. He didn’t even pay me a visit in the hospital when he got to know my whereabout.
Meanwhile, I’m still broke and friendless. My business is still at ground zero. The other half of my capital has been spent on hospital bills and medication. My family and my in-laws wish I were dead. My pastor is ashamed to associate with a sinful candidate of hell like me (according to him, people like me that commit suicide are going to hell).
I still want to die. In fact I need to die; to put myself out of this misery. My present state is worse than before the suicide attempt. I’m better off dead than alive. Just waiting to find the right opportunity and method. I sure do hate my life.
