Babra Wani spoke with suicide survivors across Kashmir to understand the causes, recovery journeys, and resilience, while examining the critical role of family support and professional mental healthcare
Amaira is careful about what she wears.
At 29, she appears composed, measured in speech, and quietly self-assured. But she prefers long sleeves, even in warmer weather. On rare occasions, when the fabric shifts, a thick, pale scar becomes visible across her wrist, a reminder she quickly conceals.
The mark is 12 years old. It dates back to a moment she now describes with a mixture of distance and clarity.
“I was seventeen,” she remembers. “I had failed an exam that my parents wanted me to pass. At that time, it felt like everything had ended.”
That afternoon, she returned home to an empty house. Her parents were out, her brother at school. In the silence of her room, she locked the door, took a blade from her father’s shaving kit, and, as she recalled, acted in a single, irreversible motion.
“I closed my eyes and made the cut. When I opened them, I saw blood flowing. That’s when I realised I might actually die.”
Panic followed impulse. She unlocked the door. Minutes later, her mother found her.
What came next was a blur, a rush to the hospital, stitches, and weeks of recovery. The physical wound healed in about a month. The psychological aftermath took longer.
Her family’s response, however, became a turning point. Vigilance replaced routine. Sharp objects were removed from her reach, doors were modified, and her brother, once just a sibling, became her closest emotional anchor.
“They were extremely careful with me,” she admitted. “At times it felt suffocating, but it also meant I was not alone anymore.”
Now, Amaira looks back at that moment not with shame, but with perspective.
“I was a teenager. I did not understand the consequences or how temporary that failure really was. Now it feels like I was standing at the edge of something permanent because of something so small.”
Love, Coercion, Crisis
For many survivors, the trigger is not a single event but a convergence of emotional pressures. For Sadaf, now 29, it began with what seemed like an ordinary online connection.
“It started on social media,” she remembers. “Just chatting, casually.”
The conversations deepened quickly. Messages became calls, calls turned into video conversations, and within months, she found herself emotionally invested. They met in person a few times, strengthening what she believed was a genuine relationship.
But the dynamic shifted.
“It turned ugly,” she said, pausing. “I do not want to go into details, but I knew I had to leave.”
Disengaging, however, proved difficult. When she began ignoring calls and delaying responses, the tone changed. One day, while travelling home from school, she answered an unknown number.
It was him.
“He started abusing me, threatening me. He said if I did not meet him, he would send our chats and pictures to my father.”
The call left her shaken. Fear followed her home, where another crisis awaited; her mother had fallen ill.
“I did not know what to do. Everything felt like it was collapsing at once.”That evening, overwhelmed and isolated, she made a decision.
“I thought ending my life would solve everything.”
She swallowed multiple tablets from her mother’s medication. The effects were immediate and violent, including burning in her throat, dizziness, and vomiting. Her sister found her in time.
At the hospital, her stomach was pumped. She survived.
What she remembers most vividly is not the physical pain, but her father’s face.
“He looked… broken. I had never seen him like that. It was as if he had aged overnight.”
Recovery, in this case, was not just medical but existential. Sadaf severed all contact with the man, changed her phone number, deleted her social media accounts, and slowly rebuilt her life.
“I realised I had been given another chance,” she said. “And I was not going to waste it.”
Today, she works as an engineer. The episode remains a defining memory, but not a defining identity.
Impulse and Aftermath
Not all attempts stem from prolonged distress. Some are sudden, driven by acute emotional conflict.
Aftab’s story reflects this immediacy.
At 24, he still carries the emotional residue of a decision made in a moment of anger. He had been in a relationship, and his partner was under pressure from her family to marry someone else.
“She told me to send my parents a proposal,” he said.
When he approached his father, the response was unequivocal: no. He was told he was too young, unprepared, and irresponsible to take on marriage.
“I was furious. I felt no one understood me.”
In that heightened state, he issued an ultimatum, one his father did not take seriously.
“I said I would kill myself. He did not believe me.”
Minutes later, Aftab climbed to the rooftop and jumped.
He survived, sustaining a fracture. Physically, the recovery was straightforward. Emotionally, it was not.
His parents, shaken by the incident, relented. But the damage had already been done.
“I stopped talking to my father,” he remembers. “I survived, but something inside me did not heal.”
His case underscores a critical dimension of such incidents: survival does not automatically resolve underlying conflict.
Repeated Attempts, Lingering Shadows
For some, the struggle is neither singular nor impulsive, but cyclical.
Fahad was nineteen when he first attempted suicide. A three-year relationship had ended, leaving him emotionally destabilised.
“I thought it was the end of everything,” he said.
His first attempt involved jumping into a river. He survived. The second involved ingesting medication, interrupted by his family. The third, a wrist injury, again ended in hospitalisation.
It was only after these repeated attempts that a clinical diagnosis emerged: post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.
What followed was structured intervention, counselling, therapy, and gradual reintegration into routine life.
“Therapy helped me understand what I was going through,” he said. “It gave me tools to deal with it.”
Today, he is pursuing a degree in business and often speaks to others experiencing distress.
“I feel like I survived for a reason,” he claims. “If I can help someone else, that matters.”
Zahra’s experience is more layered.
Now 21, she speaks softly, often pausing mid-sentence, but her account reveals a prolonged and complex struggle. Her distress was shaped by multiple factors, including abuse and social humiliation.
“I was in a very bad place,” she believes. “People were abusing me, judging me. I felt trapped.”
Her first attempt was at thirteen. The last at eighteen. In between were multiple methods, each unsuccessful.
“At that time, I thought I was failing at ending my life,” she said. “Now I think I was surviving.”
The distinction is significant. It reflects a shift in self-perception, from failure to endurance.
She remains under treatment, combining medication and therapy. While intrusive thoughts persist, she describes them as manageable.
“There are still difficult days,” she admits. “But I am in a better place than before.”
Turning Point
For Sarim, survival marked a decisive rupture with the past.
At seventeen, following prolonged emotional distress, financial strain, and substance use, he consumed a large quantity of pesticide after an argument with his father.
“At that time, I felt no one understood me,” he said. “I just wanted the suffering to stop.”
He was found in time and given emergency treatment.
What followed was not just recovery, but transformation.
“When I came out of the hospital, I felt like a different person,” he said. “My anger was gone. My thinking had changed.”
The shift was gradual but sustained. Over time, he developed a more measured outlook on life.
“If there is a reason to die,” he said, “there are many reasons to live as well.”
Understanding Survival
Mental health professionals emphasise that surviving a suicide attempt is not a singular event, but the beginning of a complex psychological journey.
Clinical psychologist Wasim Kakroo, who has worked extensively with such cases, describes the aftermath as deeply layered.
“In the immediate phase, survivors often experience guilt, shame, and confusion,” he explained. “There is also the physical recovery, which itself can be traumatic.”
Over time, however, many individuals begin to reconstruct their internal frameworks, developing coping mechanisms, engaging in therapy, and building support systems.
“Survival can become a point of reflection,” he said. “It allows individuals to reassess priorities, relationships, and their sense of purpose.”
But this trajectory is not automatic.
“Without professional intervention, there is a risk of recurrence,” he cautioned. “Support, both clinical and social, is critical.”
In many cases, survivors go on to become advocates, using their experiences to support others navigating similar crises.
Beyond Survival
Across these accounts, the specifics differ: academic pressure, relationships, family conflict, trauma. Yet certain patterns emerge: isolation at the moment of crisis, impulsive or overwhelming decision-making, and, crucially, the role of intervention.
Family presence, timely medical care, and, in several cases, professional mental health support, form the difference between fatality and survival.
But survival is not a neat resolution. It is an ongoing process, one that involves rebuilding, reinterpreting, and, often, relearning how to live.
Amaira still wears long sleeves. Zahra still has difficult days. Aftab still carries unresolved hurt. Fahad continues to work through his recovery. Sarim continues to redefine himself.
Their stories do not converge into a single narrative of redemption. Instead, they offer something more nuanced: evidence of fragility, endurance, and the possibility, not certainty, of change.
In each case, survival is not the end of the story. It is the point at which the story begins again.
(All names have been changed)
