It’s hard to put words on the size of this tragedy. Tanya Spaulding was just 26 years old, a finalist at the 2023 Miss Universe Jamaica Pageant, an aspiring professional who worked as an accountant. She was radiant on stage, confident about the career that she had chosen, and beloved by many people, but beneath everything, she was fighting an invisible, deadly war.
Her body was found by the family on Tuesday morning. The police verified that she did indeed end up suspended off the apartment curtains. The Jamaican Constabulary Force is investigating as a possible suicide.
A Cry for Help That Few Heard
What’s especially sad about Tanya’s suicide is that she’d already been speaking from the heart by sharing her sufferings on social media for whoever happened to be listening. In her words, she had confessed that she was at war against her very own mind.
“I’m fighting for my life… my mind is trying to kill me,” Tanya confessed.
“Every day I get up, my mind tells me to go and jump off a building. It tells me to go and overdose on pills. It tells me to go and hang myself.”
Her honesty was raw, vulnerable, and courageous. But it was also a desperate plea that now feels unbearably prophetic.
Tanya’s Light Remembered
The Miss Universe Jamaica organization released a statement paying their respects, referring to Tanya as “a bright, brilliant, and motivated youth.” They expressed their love towards her family as well, stating that her presence made an indelible mark on the contest as well as on anyone who crossed her path.
Friends, followers, and former contestants are inundating timelines with tributes, posting old pictures and stories of Tanya’s kindness. To most, she was more than a beauty queen. She was the friend who phoned to ask if you were okay, the woman who moved with grace, and the memory that strength too often masks unbelievable agony.
The Pressure of Perfection
As women, we are so often taught to look polished, to carry burdens quietly, to present strength even when our hearts are breaking. Tanya’s death forces us to confront how dangerous that expectation can be. She had the crown, the career, the intelligence, and yet, none of it silenced the demons she was fighting in her mind.
One of the posts going around online puts it best: “Check in on your tough friends. They need love the most.”
Convert Grief into Action
Mental health activists in Jamaica are already calling upon the public not to allow Tanya’s case slip from view as merely another headline. Her suffering, her transparency, and her poignant death need to become a springboard prompting change, reminding that mental illness is indiscriminate and that we owe one another the need to peer deeper, ask more probing questions, and actually listen.
If you or a loved one is experiencing suicide feelings, there is help. In Jamaica, you will be able to reach out to the Mental Health Helpline at 888-NEW-LIFE (639-5433). In the United States, call 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Tanya Spaulding’s voice, her bravery, and her painful candor will resonate long after this tragedy. She deserves to be remembered not merely as a beauty and an intelligent woman but as a woman who revealed to us the dignity that many of them hide: that even the strength of women sometimes needs salvation.
