Why would a beauty kill herself?

Ever since Ruslana Korshunova, 20, jumped from a building on Water Street in New York’s financial district several weeks ago, people have been wondering why she did it. Why would a beautiful, young, successful model kill herself?

Newspapers reported that she was unhappy, but the source of the unhappiness was unclear. In one message from her diary three months before the suicide she wrote: "I'm so lost. Will I ever find myself?" In an earlier posting, quoted in the New York Daily News, she wrote: "It hurts, as if someone took a part of me, tore it out, mercilessly stomped all over and threw it out." One cryptic entry in March reads: "My dream is to fly. Oh, my rainbow it is too high."

Other postings revealed anger. In March she wrote: "I'm a bitch. I'm a witch. I don't care what you say ... I know why my other relationships didn't work out, 'cause I'm unpredictable. "

Originally from the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan, the almond-eyed, flowing-haired Korshunova appeared in advertisements and on runways for such designers as Marc Jacobs, Nina Ricci and DKNY. British Vogue hailed her as "a face to be excited about" in 2005. Her break came when modeling booker Debbie Jones noticed a picture of her while perusing an in-flight magazine article about Korushnova's hometown of Almaty, according to a Vogue magazine report. "She looked like something out of a fairytale!" Jones told Vogue. "We had to find her and we searched high and low until we did!"

At the time of her suicide, she was reportedly dating two American men and had broken up with a married man in Russia. She had also hired a “life coach” in Russia to help her with her relationship problems. Her mother, with whom she was supposedly very close, came to America to claim the body.

We may never solve the mystery of Korushnova’s suicide. But her case reminds me of another suicidal girl, a patient, whom I came to know a while back. Let us call her Miss M. Like Ruslana, Miss M was a beautiful young woman who was troubled by pursuers. And, like Ruslana, she was sending money back home in Europe to her mother each week.

For Miss M, the problem did not have to do with the men who dated her. It had to do with her mother. Her mother had smothered her with love when she was a child. After divorcing her alcoholic father, her mother clung to Miss M like a safety tube. When Miss M became a teenager, her mother would routinely disapprove of any man she was dating.

Miss M moved to America to get away from her mother (although she wasn’t aware of that consciously). Her mother called her every day, and Miss M would report to her the details of her love life. One after another she disapproved of her beaus and entreated Miss M to return to Russia. As Miss M went through one beau after another, she was beside herself, unable to understand the confusion within. One part wanted to give herself to a man; the other wanted to remain loyal to her mother. She suffered from confusion, depression and suicidal thoughts--a depression similar to Ruslana Korushnova’s.

Whether Ruslana had a similar childhood can only be mere speculation. But we do know that children from healthy families do not normally become suicidal.