Amarachi Okeh writes about how broken relationships have left many lovers devastated and some with fatal consequences
Cupid’s arrow struck Tamunotonye Pere and Joy, 13 years after their innocent friendship that began on a mobile social network, 2go, blossomed into a beautiful love story in late 2022.
“It was not like anybody asked anyone out. It just happened that we vibed on a lot of issues and spoke all the time for a few months before I eventually asked her to come spend her second semester holiday with me.”
Unfortunately, their lovers’ quarrel could not withstand the test coupled with the fact that Pere’s job caused him to return home late.
“We didn’t have time to bond,” he admitted.
So, when Joy asked that they break up, he was devastated because he thought with her, he had found a “heart to call home”.
Tamunotonye told Saturday PUNCH that the breakup messed up his head and his reality. “Breaking up with Joy is the worst thing that has ever happened to me. It made me doubt my whole existence. It affected my mental health and made me question my reality and who I am.
“In the course of the breakup, there was a lot of back and forth which degenerated into name-calling, and it became unhealthy for us both. I was affected physically as I could not eat or even bathe.
“I want to believe she, too, was affected, because the last time I saw her at the Ikeja City Mall, Lagos, to sort of get closure – which I never did – she looked scurry and dry. I even told her that she didn’t look well.
“I also looked really bony. She told me she still loved me. I still love her but she had decided to end it no matter what,” he said.
Lamenting further, he disclosed that his ex informed me that every memory she remembered of them – be it good or bad – gave her more reason to leave,” a situation he said hit him hard.
“I fought for more than three weeks, begging, grovelling, asking her to come back. But you cannot force anyone to be with you if they are not ready to fight. I still find it hard to accept it.
“Sometimes, I cry and beat myself. I feel guilty but I know that in the end, I will be fine. I have had many people assure me. But, right now, it doesn’t feel like it.
“I just want to wake up from this bad dream and find out that my baby girl is still with me, and all that happened was just a nightmare,” he added.
While Tamunotonye accepted that his love story with his ex had ended, a resident of Adamawa State, Jamima Balami, could not.
Her love for her partner cost her family everything when she felt she could no longer live another day. Her heart could not bear to beat if not for him. Sadly, Balami, the only child of her parents, decided she would rather take her own life than live without him.
The 24-year-old had imagined that her relationship with her unidentified lecturer boyfriend would usher them into a beautiful marital future. Rather, it left her shattered when he broke up with her.
Saturday PUNCH learnt that the lady, a National Diploma II student of Mass Communication at Federal Polytechnic, Mubi, was about to complete her industrial training at Adamawa Television in Yola when she took her own life by ingesting a poisonous substance suspected to be rat poison that led to her death.
Confirming the incident in late January, the state’s Police Public Relations Officer, SP Yahaya Suleiman, said her father reported that she committed suicide by taking a deadly substance.
“Another version had it that she visited her boyfriend, a lecturer at Modibbo Adama University, Yola, and he told her of his decision to quit the relationship. Angered by the news from her boyfriend, the deceased took poison.
“We are investigating the matter, and justice will be served,” the police officer said.
He then urged the public to desist from taking their own life, adding that matters could be amicably resolved rather than going the extreme because it was an offence to commit suicide.
When the news of her death was made public on social media, Nigerians expressed shock, and wondered why a young lady with a promising future decided to kill herself because of a relationship.
A Facebook user, Fagbenle Idowu Buzayor Babalola, asked “How old is she that she’s committing suicide? Who told her he was the right man for her?
“Who told her, she could never find another guy better than him? She’s guilty of death. May God console the family.”
Another user, Kayode Oluwatosin Toba, wondered why Balami did not consider her future as more important than the relationship.
“Why now? Your future is more important than that. Haba! Committing suicide is certainly not an option, let it go and rebuild your future… remember relationship is not and never a do-or-die affair, don’t kill yourself over hopeless somebody.”
Heartbreak and mental health
Love is an emotional thing. The state of a person’s romantic relationship can affect their lives, depending on how much emotion has been invested, a consultant psychiatrist, Dr Dapo Adegbaju said.
Heartbreak is when a person is suffering strong emotional distress, especially after the end of a love affair. A clinical psychologist, Oluwakemi Akintoyese, describing the feeling, said “Sometimes, the person suffering it would tell you that it feels like the heart is about to crack inside their chest, they are not able to function or push on as much as they want to. Some would describe it as having a dull ache.
“For some other people, it feels like a piercing in the heart. Overall, it means that an individual has strong emotional distress or suffering or a depressed emotional state resulting from an upsetting event after a breakup or loss of a relationship,” she added.
According to her, suicide resulting from the end of a relationship centres on a person’s mental health.
“Don’t forget that heartbreak is defined as a strong emotional state, so because of the emotional aspect that is involved in heartbreak, it is linked with mental health. When a relationship breaks down, it disturbs an individual’s emotional functioning, their way of thinking, sense of judgment, and sense of reasoning.
“It doesn’t allow them to be able to view life as they want. For some people, at that stage, it looks like the end has come. They may not have the tenacity to be able to push through or move on with that level of loss they perceive at that time,” she added.
The human heart comes hardwired with the ability to experience pleasure from intimate connections, so it instinctually feels relationships, said Michael Jacob, a certified psychotherapist and EFT specialist, adding that the physical and emotional pleasure that relationship brings is essential for survival.
Jacob told Saturday PUNCH that when a person’s emotional state was threatened, their mental health was at risk and when that happened, they could not rationally navigate their thoughts.
“So, when one partner or both partners decide to break that connection, heartbreak occurs; a situation where the heart thinks its emotional survival is being threatened.
“We all know that sadness, a heightened emotional state, and sleeplessness are some of the manifestations of heartbreak. While some can easily move on, a lot dwell in these states for a longer time, and since the human state decides human thoughts, the longer you stay in a negative state, the possibility of various negative thoughts taking place increases, hence such people start having suicidal thoughts.”
What data say
Statistics by the World Health Organisation as of 2019 pegged the number of yearly successful suicide attempts at 703,000. The agency noted that suicidal thoughts were triggered by a combination of individual, relationship, community, and societal factors.
The WHO added that whereas suicide occurred “throughout the lifespan,” it had been identified as the fourth leading cause of death among young people between 15 and 29-year-olds globally.
While there has been an established link between suicide and mental disorders, the world’s health authority, remarked that “many suicides happen impulsively in moments of crisis with a breakdown in the ability to deal with life stresses, such as financial problems, relationship breakup or chronic pain and illness”.
This is as a study published by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that one in five deaths by suicide was related to problems with current or former intimate partners such as divorce, separation, romantic breakups, conflicts, and intimate partner violence.
The American Psychiatry Association quoting the study, which was carried out by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the University of Georgia, noted that “experiencing an acute adverse life event (like deciding to divorce or experiencing intimate partner violence) could contribute to an impulsive suicide attempt among individuals who did not previously have a suicide plan.”
But speaking with Psychiatry News, the public health advisor in the Center for Disease Control’s Division of Violence Prevention, Ayana Stanley, said that the link between relationship problems and suicidality might be two-way.
“A partner relationship marked by interpersonal conflict and violence may contribute to or exacerbate mental health problems. Conversely, mental health problems may also contribute to difficulties experienced within an intimate partner relationship,” Stanley and colleagues wrote in a report.
Furthermore, the CDC in their 2018 CDC Vital Signs revealed that it was estimated that 42 per cent of all suicides in the United States were related to relationship problems.
Lover’s betrayal
In Nigeria, there is a gradual rise in the number of suicides by persons dealing with relationship breakups. This is even worsened by the readily available substances on the market that could be easily purchased under the guise of using them for the expected purpose.
In November 2022, the mother of a seven-year-old boy, Olaitan Adonis, ingested a poisonous substance that killed her when she learnt that the man she was in a committed relationship with was getting married to another woman in a few days with the money she had saved with him.
Olaitan was said to have been with her boyfriend the day before she learnt of his upcoming wedding to another woman that weekend. Upon receiving the news, she was reported to have been devastated by her lover’s betrayal, prompting her to ingest the deadly substance.
One of her friends, who spoke about the incident, said, “They were together last Thursday, September 8, and even spent the night together, but on Friday, another friend of hers told her that her fiancé was getting married on Sunday, September 11.
“She was heartbroken and devastated. She kept shouting ‘over her dead body’ when she heard it. The next day we heard that she had drunk a poisonous substance and died.”
Also speaking, Adonis’ unidentified employer said that the woman, who was her salesgirl, used to give her boyfriend money for his upkeep which she claimed he kept squandering.
“My salesgirl (Olaitan) has been giving him money from my shop for upkeep, but he squandered the whole money. She even sent him N10,000 on Friday (September 9, 2022).
“After she committed suicide because of the news and we called him to tell him about it, he said it was none of his business,” she added.
Mourning her death, her alma mater, Ijeshatedo Grammar School, posted a tribute on its Facebook advising people against killing themselves because of anyone.
In November 2022, another tragedy struck, this time, involving an unidentified student of Federal Polytechnic, Oko, Anambra State, who was said to have taken his life after his girlfriend ended their relationship.
Like Balami, Saturday PUNCH, learnt that the Anambra poly student was undergoing industrial training when his girlfriend asked to end the relationship. The late student, who was described as a bright and promising man, was also said to be on his way to graduating with distinction from the Department of Public Administration when it happened.
Another source added that the man ingested insecticide when he couldn’t bear the shock of being heartbroken.
Recently, a video of an older woman threatening to kill her younger male lover and herself if he left him for another woman generated a lot of reactions on social media with many seeing it as hilarious and laughing off the threat. The video had a wide reception and the audio became a trend online.
Although Saturday PUNCH could not verify the veracity of the video sighted by our correspondent, the visibly angry woman was seen threatening her young male lover while responding to questions asked by a female interviewer.
Responding aggressively when asked what would happen if he left her, she said, “Instead of him going to marry another girl, I will kill him, kill myself. Let the girl go and die.”
However, experts said threats of suicide due to issues in relationships should not be taken lightly but treated with care and sensitivity.
“Take their word for it, do not think they are doing it for attention. Brushing off their mention of suicide validates their distress of not being loved,” Jacob added.
He revealed that a person going through emotional distress could be helped by caring and encouraging them to talk about their feelings and suicidal thoughts.
“I know there is a misconception that shying away from the conversation will help. It wouldn’t. That there is a listening ear to their pains will go a long way than silencing thoughts of suicide,” he said.
From the reports of persons who have taken their lives due to heartbreak, it has been observed that a majority of the cases of suicides were aided by ingesting pesticides.
This, Adegbaju described as a worrisome and alarming trend. According to him, what makes people resort to taking such things is the fear of starting again and how much emotional investment they lose with the end of the relationship.
How heartbreaks affect the mind – Psychologist
Explaining what could trigger suicidal thoughts in a person, a psychologist, Chineze Okafor explained that when people fall are in love, their brains release a flood of chemicals – dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin, which create feelings of pleasure, attachment, and happiness.
“These chemicals help to bond us to our partners and create a sense of euphoria and contentment. But when a relationship ends, these chemicals can plummet, leaving us feeling empty, hopeless, and alone.
“The psychological impact of a breakup can be further compounded by the sense of loss and rejection we may experience. When a relationship ends, we not only lose our partner but also a part of ourselves.
“We may feel as though we’ve lost a sense of identity, purpose, and belonging. The sense of rejection we may feel can be especially painful, as it can trigger feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy,” Okafor added.
Heartbreaks and hidden mental health challenges
Meanwhile Adegbaju, a consultant psychiatrist at the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Yaba, noted that the end of a relationship could expose the mental health challenges a person could have been suffering which were previously shielded by the relationship.
According to him, when a relationship ends, some people may suffer from depression and their inability to resolve the issues could make them vulnerable to developing low self-esteem which could push them into having suicidal thoughts, and then making suicidal attempts.
Additionally, he said, “Being suicidal is usually a sign that there are underlying mental health issues that have gone unresolved. The person might have mental issues but maybe it was the relationship that was helping the person to cope (a relationship being a protective factor) but with the relationship gone, the mental illness starts to manifest.
“Some people who are genetically predisposed to mental illness can manifest if love goes south. Mental illness will include depression, mania, schizophrenia, and substance use disorders among others.”
Support for the broken-hearted
However, experts advised that when a relationship ends, those affected need to be supported and surrounded by people with whom they could share their pains without judgment.
If the pain of the end of the relationship is too much, the person can approach a therapist (counsellor, psychologist, or psychiatrist). Treatment of any underlying mental health issue is advised at this stage, Adegbaju advised.
“It is important to allow them grief, cry when they want, and rant when they want,” Jacob said.
This, he said, was the first step of healing and must be done as denial of the situation could worsen it.
Such persons can also engage in mindfulness practices like meditation, breathing exercises, and journaling to encourage them to simply be, exist, and thrive in their new reality.
Furthermore, a change of environment or state of the environment is considered crucial to anyone suffering great emotional trauma to recover.
“Make sure that they are in an environment where they can feel loved, where they can smile, where they can play and get distracted. Most people who have suicidal thoughts always want to dissociate themselves from people. Don’t allow that.
“The second is to alter their psychological state by letting them see the experience differently; there is a saying that when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at begin to change,” Michael told our correspondent.
“Tell them stories, and engage in conversations that can make them give another interpretation to their experience.
“While doing this, offer empathy, validate how they feel, and let them know they have every reason to feel that way. Validate their feelings while you invalidate their thoughts and desired actions,” he added.
