‘Ending My Life Seemed Like The Best Option'

A woman, who nearly committed suicide because of depression, explains how she found a reason to live.

- Doreen Mokgolo

MOTHER of two, Nhlanhla Ndaba (35), says that suffering from depression almost left her blind. This also left her emotionally scarred after suffering from vitiligo – a disease that causes the loss of skin colour in blotches.

NEGATIVE EMOTIONS 

Nhlanhla, who is from KwaThema in Ekurhuleni, Gauteng, says she almost died after she shoved a cocktail of pills down her throat in order to escape from her challenges.

She says she couldn’t seek help because she feared that people would regard her as weak.

Her problems started when she fell pregnant at the age of 20 in her first-year of study in college.

“Since I come from a religious background, where we are taught that sex before marriage is a sin, so my parents were disappointed.”

NO SOURCE OF INCOME 

Nhlanhla says she had to drop out of her studies in order to raise her son.

“Since I didn’t have any source of income to support my son, I didn’t think twice when the father of my child asked me to move in with him,” she says.

“I also felt this would present a chance for him to eventually marry me.”

Nhlanhla says they were a happy family until she gave birth to their second son.

“Things took a nasty turn when my boyfriend stopped sleeping at home,” she says. “He later moved out to stay with his new girlfriend.”

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