IG: @TEMOSODESMOND

I recently came across a very disturbing statistic from Discovery, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. Of all the unnatural deaths amongst 41 to 60-year-olds in South Africa, 45% are the result of suicide. Nearly half. Not to downplay the horrific accidents among younger people, or those in older age groups. But this 45% number exposes something devastating about the state of our society. People are clearly under immense pressure. They feel ashamed, afraid, and most heartbreakingly, lonely and feel like they have nowhere to turn. This is not simply a mental health issue. It’s structural. It’s cultural. And it’s urgent. As some of you may know, I suffered this tragedy first hand in my own family when my youngest sibling devastatingly ended his own life. We need to start having serious, open conversations. Government, insurance and healthcare industries because we lose people in their prime who still had much to contribute. What’s also worrying is how quietly this epidemic continues. We don’t speak about it because families hide it. And yet, the silence only allows it to grow. Shame is a poor strategy for reducing the loneliness people feel. I don’t pretend to have the answers. But I do know this: we cannot accept this as normal. We must, all of us, begin to ask better questions, offer better support, and demand better systems. Because when almost half of a generation feels life is no longer worth living, we can’t just look away and carry on as if this is normal in a society.