In June, M., a 28-year-old woman jumped from the second floor of her home in Madurai, India — 20 feet above a rocky, tar road — after a bitter argument with her husband. He had accused her of having an affair.
This was M.'s second attempt to kill herself. She survived the fall. M. had been prescribed antidepressants after her first suicide attempt seven years before but had stopped taking them. She was admitted to Madurai's Government Rajaji hospital shortly after her second suicide attempt. Three weeks later, doctors recommended that she have surgery using metallic plates to fuse her shattered spine, but her mother, uncertain and fearful about the outcome, refused to let M. go under the knife.
She was discharged a month after her ordeal and remains bedridden in her mother's home, unable to walk. Her two children, an 8-year-old girl and a 5-year-old boy, who last visited her a week ago, still live with their father. Her mother gave us the details of her story and asked that only her daughter's initial be used to protect her privacy.
[For more on this story by KAMALA THIAGARAJAN, go to https://www.npr.org/sections/g...lth-concern-in-india]
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