International Journal of Sub-Saharan African Research (IJSSAR)

Background: Suicide is a growing public health concern in Nigeria, often hidden due to stigma, moral judgment, and legal repercussions. Suicide notes, as personal expressions of distress, provide valuable insight into the psychological and emotional struggles of victims. Metaphors in these notes serve as a lens through which individuals communicate unbearable pain, the desire to escape, and attempts to shift responsibility.
Objective: This study examined how metaphors in suicide notes reflect emotional pain, conceptualize death as an escape, and illustrate the denial or displacement of personal responsibility among Nigerian suicide victims.
Method: Employing a qualitative research design, suicide notes from five Nigerian victims were purposively collected from media outlets and social media platforms between April 2022 and July 2025. The notes were anonymized and analyzed using the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) to identify recurring metaphorical themes of pain, escape, and responsibility displacement. Textual analysis was conducted, and findings were presented descriptively. Results: The analysis revealed that victims frequently represented pain as overwhelming, using metaphors of darkness, blockage, and brokenness. Death was consistently portrayed as a form of release, peace, or liberation from intolerable suffering. Additionally, victims often shifted moral or causal responsibility onto external forces, such as family, society, or circumstances beyond their control.
Conclusion: Nigerian suicide notes show that language, through metaphors, provides a window into the inner emotional worlds of victims, revealing extreme suffering, the pursuit of escape through death, and attempts to minimize personal accountability. Understanding these metaphorical expressions can guide mental health practitioners, families, and policymakers in developing culturally sensitive suicide prevention strategies.
Unique Contribution: This study offers new insight into how linguistic metaphors communicate extreme emotional distress in a highly stigmatized context. It emphasizes the importance of language analysis for understanding the experiences of individuals whose suffering is often hidden or silenced.
Key Recommendation: Suicide prevention efforts should integrate awareness of metaphorical expressions of distress, train mental health professionals to recognize linguistic indicators of extreme emotional pain, and promote culturally sensitive communication strategies to identify and support at-risk individuals before suicide occurs.