NIGERIA: Surviving the Bridge

On World Mental Health Day, a Nigerian writer Abigail D. Etukudo returned to the bridge where strangers once saved her life. With puzzles in hand, she turned an almost tragic event into a memory of gratitude and defiance.

"I am lost, but I am willing to find myself again.”

On June 25, 2025, I walked to a pedestrian bridge in Abuja with one goal in mind—to jump. I stood on the bridge, mentally calculating how to get it done such that it would be completely fatal, with no chance of survival. Then I remembered squatting, taking in the hustle and bustle going on around me.

I was lost. I had had enough of life with its ups and downs. I just wanted freedom from all the pain and suffering. I chose death for myself. I was ready. I closed my eyes and said a little prayer. As I began to untie the ropes that stood as barriers, I began reminiscing about my life.

I had failed at everything. A writer, widely praised but whose writing nobody was willing to pay for. A creative with a wide range of knowledge, yet forever broke because nobody saw the financial value in anything I offered. My talent's value is free. Everything I have to give, everyone wanted it for free.

As I untied the ropes, I began to feel the release. It's going to end. It's over. You won't be irrelevant anymore. You won't be treated as irrelevant anymore. It's over.

Earlier in the day, I had left a note in my small cubicle that I had called home for five years. It was the only place I could be happy. I thanked it for hiding my pain and shame. My home. Where I could just lie down and sleep.

At some point while untying the ropes, I froze! Is this it? Are you sure you really want to do this?

Then the memories came flooding back. All the abuse, the betrayal, the disappointments, the shame, the constant begging for food, the serial journey to nothingness.

I am nothing. I have never been anything. My digital footprints were all over the internet—begging to be loved, to be accepted, to be helped, to be relevant. Everywhere, I cried.

That realization gave me even more motivation. The ropes proved a little too difficult to untie, but I was determined...so determined that I didn't notice the curious gazes around me.

I was just a human being who wanted to find rest. Years of labor with nothing to show for it had turned me into an object of mockery. I didn't even know who I was anymore. My writing talent became my greatest albatross. I hated it! Why have a talent you can't use to feed yourself? Imagine begging for food to eat every day.

The shame of it alone.

The pain of rejection.

The taste of constant failed promises.

It was too much.

The more I untied the ropes, the more I knew jumping was the only choice left for me.

Then the intervention came. I was angry. I was pained that the ropes had kept me a little longer. If not for the ropes, I would have been off that bridge long before anyone noticed. As the passers-by tried to pull me away from the bridge, I took a deep breath (the deepest I had ever taken), hoping it would be my last, and I lurched forward.

I could hear the panic that followed as hefty men scrambled to pull me back. Then I screamed in anger. I didn't want to be saved. I saw them as my enemies. They wanted to keep me back to continue the suffering. It had taken me days of mental exercise to get to the stage where I was ready to jump, and these people dared to stop me. I hated them. I hated them so much.

They were only trying to help. My mind was thinking of the next way to escape them. They knew! They kept a watch over me. Eventually, I was taken to the police station, where I was kept for three days before I was released.

Back to misery. Back to the life I didn't want to live anymore. I have struggled in these four months. It's even harder because now I am also living out of respect for the people who saved me. But I am back to nothingness. No job. No relevance. Just every day waking up and wondering, “What am I going to do?” It's a hard life I have.

So when, in September, I applied to attempt a Guinness World Record for ‘most speeches in 48 hours’, I never expected anything to come out of it. My reason for applying was to have an opportunity to find myself again, through speaking for an uninterrupted period of time.

On World Mental Health Day (October 10, 2025 ), I decided to face my fear of that bridge. I went back there with a puzzle (one other thing I love doing), and I spent hours on that bridge to wipe away the horrid memory of June 25. I was also able to personally thank the people who saved me (without telling them that I wish they had not). I would have passed them on the street and not have known who they were. To be honest, they didn't recognize me, either.

It was a mixed bag of emotions for me because the issues that pushed me to the bridge were still there. I didn't see my being alive as victory...I actually saw it as torture. I lost everything. The will to write and to read—the two things I never thought I would lose. No matter how much I explain, nobody understands.

You see, waking up every day with no plans, no agenda, is one of the most gruesome things that could happen to a human being.

I was gone. The person I knew was gone. The writer was gone. I had nothing. Nothing to give me joy.

The email confirming acceptance of my application came a few days after I revisited the bridge. I think this World Record attempt has given me something to look forward to. Though it's really hard because I am about to do something that is so taxing, and doing it while I am at my lowest ebb might just be a great wonder.

I am lost, but I am willing to find myself again, and I believe this crazy task will help me find who I am, to rediscover what I love, and set my life on a path to get out of this quagmire....hopefully.

Every suicide prevention website I visited or article I read during my turbulent times encouraged speaking out about what one was feeling, and so I did. However, what I often got as a response was either pity, judgment, uncomfortable silence, or outright rebuke.

I am of the strong opinion that suicide is highly preventable, but if we really want to prevent it, we need to be less focused on procedural advocacy and more focused on being empathetic humans to each other by listening to understand the situation.

On the bridge, though I spoke no words, I received empathy. I was lucky, but not everyone will be lucky enough to have intervention in the nick of time. Sometimes, intervention could be a little too late. The goal should be prevention, not intervention.

Reach out to people struggling with mental health issues before they're standing on a bridge.

STORY AWARDS

This story was published as part of World Pulse's Story Awards program. We believe every woman has a story to share, and that the world will be a better place when women are heard.