EDITORIAL: Confronting the silence around suicide

American novelist David Foster Wallace, who tragically ended his own life, once described the experience of suicidal despair in searing metaphor. “The person in whom its invisible agony reaches an unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person eventually jumps from the window of a burning high-rise... The fear of falling remains constant. The variable here is the other terror – the fire’s flames... It’s not about desiring the fall; it’s about fearing the flames,” he wrote.It is one of the most haunting and accurate depictions of suicidal ideation ever penned.People who fantasise about ending their lives do not do so because they want to die. They do so because the agonising flames of depression – that unendurable hopelessness that has drained their lives of all colour, meaning and trust in a future – have become more terrifying than falling from the 11th floor of a skyscraper. At this stage, any hope of help from the outside world has been completely, utterly extinguished. But it is precisely this complexity – and the shockingly widespread ignorance that surrounds mental health and suicide – that contribute to Namibia’s failure, like many other societies, to adequately address the crisis. Harmful misconceptions about depression and suicide not only hinder our ability to support those in crisis, but can also deepen the problem. If we as a society truly want to address the suicide crisis, we need a new language. One rooted not in blame, but in compassion. One that replaces ignorance with education, superstition with science, and fear with empathy.Ignorance can be just as deadly as depression. In an age of boundless resources, we have the means to make a difference. We can save lives. But only if we choose to acknowledge our harmful blind spots around mental health and suicide.

EDITORIAL: Confronting the silence around suicide

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Namibian Sun 2025-11-06

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EDITORIAL: Confronting the silence around suicide

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Namibian Sun 2025-11-06

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