You think so? It isn't fair to quote you out of context because you're mostly right in saying that, but it's a hell of an assumption. Enough people suffering from depression take their own lives anyway - often in really painful and horrific ways that not least affect their families and whole social circle in terrible ways, often because they had no idea things were so bad for the person to take that ultimate and irrevocable decision on their own without support.
For people who have to live with depression (I'm one of them although I appreciate you may not know this being relatively new on this forum) suicide is something that you think about a lot, even if you have no intention of doing that for a variety of reasons, even if it doesn't worry you that you'll hurt the people who do love you very much indeed by doing so. Depression distorts your reasoning, even if you're on medication or in deep therapy, but the stand out thing for people with a mental predisposition to end their lives is most often one of isolation. Here's a thing - how would be if there was somewhere you knew you could find out about ending your life safely after being assessed and counselled as to whether it's the right course and where nobody gets prosecuted or penalised for helping you reach a decision? No more deliberate fatal overdoses, jumps from great heights, or onto railway lines, or looking down the barrel of gun in the depths of despair at the midnight hour with an empty whiskey bottle?
When I was on 'suicide alert' I was prescribed strong medication that I was told, in no uncertain terms by the psychiatrist, would NOT kill me if I overdosed no matter how many I took. What it would do he told me would be to f*ck my digestive system irrevocably so I'd need surgery and pain medication for the rest of my life. I wasn't going to suicide then and I'm still not about to end my life now, not because I scared of wrecking my digestive tract, but because I won't hurt my friends and family that way because I've seen what suicide by whatever means does to the people left behind - and I have things I want to do still on a more selfish level.
If I was going to go for it, if I knew there was a legal way to do it (or 'manage' it if you like), then I'd probably choose to use that route so that it at least prepared people, including myself, for the end. Dignatas mostly helps people with terminal illnesses who have already lived useful, enjoyable lives. The people who go there who aren't medically terminal are often not accepted or, if they are, then change their minds because they realise they're not ready yet. That speaks volumes for a system like that being socially responsible and there are other institutions around the world that work in a similar way and where the individual, having 'won' the right to make the decision on when enough is enough, can then determine when that moment comes. For themselves and others.
And again that involves choice and an act of will. It's wonderful if you can find the strength to fight so hard and so long, but what if you can't? Most people only have so much strength and, more importantly, hope. It's not a blanket decision but personal and individual, hopefully made from an informed and inclusive perspective.
Where you can establish that a prognosis is bad and life has become unbearable for the patient and for those who care for them, then why prolong the inevitable for the sake of an imposed, or more often unpredictable, timescale. Ditto for legal conformity, where there is no criminal intent and affairs have been 'put in order'. It's not a route for everyone, but it's one that needs to be there for some people to end a life that become insupportable for them, for whatever reason.
It's a parole system in other words where the life sentence serves no purpose any more. A matter of mercy, not convenience.
For people who have to live with depression (I'm one of them although I appreciate you may not know this being relatively new on this forum) suicide is something that you think about a lot, even if you have no intention of doing that for a variety of reasons, even if it doesn't worry you that you'll hurt the people who do love you very much indeed by doing so. Depression distorts your reasoning, even if you're on medication or in deep therapy, but the stand out thing for people with a mental predisposition to end their lives is most often one of isolation. Here's a thing - how would be if there was somewhere you knew you could find out about ending your life safely after being assessed and counselled as to whether it's the right course and where nobody gets prosecuted or penalised for helping you reach a decision? No more deliberate fatal overdoses, jumps from great heights, or onto railway lines, or looking down the barrel of gun in the depths of despair at the midnight hour with an empty whiskey bottle?
When I was on 'suicide alert' I was prescribed strong medication that I was told, in no uncertain terms by the psychiatrist, would NOT kill me if I overdosed no matter how many I took. What it would do he told me would be to f*ck my digestive system irrevocably so I'd need surgery and pain medication for the rest of my life. I wasn't going to suicide then and I'm still not about to end my life now, not because I scared of wrecking my digestive tract, but because I won't hurt my friends and family that way because I've seen what suicide by whatever means does to the people left behind - and I have things I want to do still on a more selfish level.
If I was going to go for it, if I knew there was a legal way to do it (or 'manage' it if you like), then I'd probably choose to use that route so that it at least prepared people, including myself, for the end. Dignatas mostly helps people with terminal illnesses who have already lived useful, enjoyable lives. The people who go there who aren't medically terminal are often not accepted or, if they are, then change their minds because they realise they're not ready yet. That speaks volumes for a system like that being socially responsible and there are other institutions around the world that work in a similar way and where the individual, having 'won' the right to make the decision on when enough is enough, can then determine when that moment comes. For themselves and others.
And again that involves choice and an act of will. It's wonderful if you can find the strength to fight so hard and so long, but what if you can't? Most people only have so much strength and, more importantly, hope. It's not a blanket decision but personal and individual, hopefully made from an informed and inclusive perspective.
Where you can establish that a prognosis is bad and life has become unbearable for the patient and for those who care for them, then why prolong the inevitable for the sake of an imposed, or more often unpredictable, timescale. Ditto for legal conformity, where there is no criminal intent and affairs have been 'put in order'. It's not a route for everyone, but it's one that needs to be there for some people to end a life that become insupportable for them, for whatever reason.
It's a parole system in other words where the life sentence serves no purpose any more. A matter of mercy, not convenience.
