Firstly, I offer my condolences to everyone who is impacted by her death and I hope that your cousins family are able to get through this.
To answer your question about why people commit suicide...
Most often than not it's to stop the suffering. I don't think they really consider about the "afterlife" not bringing them peace or they are of the idea that "nothing can be worse than this" whatever "this" is.
There are many reasons why people commit suicide.
Some because they don't consider their life as important as a cause they believe in (commonly referred to as suicide bombers).
Some because there is an emotional pain that they just don't think will get better.
These people just don't have hope for their existence and unless they understand that their life is worth something the thoughts of suicide won't diminish and will only get stronger day by day until they actually end up killing themselves.
Some people commit suicide because they want to end some physical pain that might eventually kill them anyway. They don't want to kill themselves but they don't think there's a way for them to live with this kind of pain.
There's also accidental suicide (yes it happens) i.e. overdosing on drugs, autoerotic asphyxiation etc… Most of these people have no intention of killing themselves, they either wanted to feel the pleasure from their activities or they just wanted to escape the world for a while. Suicide was not in their agenda (though to be honest these people knew they were at risk of dying. Many like to believe that, "It won't happen to me"). They just cut too deep, popped too many pills, weren't able to take the cord off in time etc…
There might, of course, be exceptions or combinations of these types of suicides.
Anupamaa
