News Euthanasia In Netherlands For 'incurable' Ptsd

[Ava Jarvis]

@Neverthesame -- I feel for your fear, but the thing is to look at it and see if the decision for euthanasia comes from ableism. If it doesn't, then it's truly your choice in my opinion—and whether I think it's right or wrong is immaterial.

My point is that ableism is insidious and can affect decisions adversely—just as racism, classicism, homophobia, or other forms of prejudice can. People aren't as aware of it, but it affects them nonetheless—in how they treat others but also in how they treat themselves.

There is a large contingent of people who not only apply ableism to themselves and believe that it makes them stronger, but also want to enforce it on others—consciously or not. Laws like this—or rather, supporting cases like this—can lead down the dark path of eugenics.

Ableism, including internalized ableism, is a terrible way to make decisions.

I am not saying that choosing to kill yourself is always wrong—that was never my point. Nor am I saying that it is always right. As I said to begin with, euthanasia is a damn complex issues.

The ableism that can easily creep into stuff like this, though? Definitely wrong.

 

[Ava Jarvis]

Also - I really don't want to prolong this conversation for myself. Please don't @ me (though it's not like I can stop people if they do), and please don't ask me to explain ableism. Not even over PMs. If you're curious, research it. If you want to tear up my post and drag it through the mud to show how wrong I am, that's fine.

Do not notify me or contact me about it.

 

[Crow]

The article makes it clear this was not a knee jerk reaction on the medical community's part. There are state laws that had to be followed and several doctors had to sign off on this approval. It was a two year process. Just saying.

I'm unfollowing this thread.

 

[mary1979]

The thought makes me terribly sad :(

But I've always believed that the right to take ones own life should be in our own hands and not some doctor.

The idea that suicide be illegal is abhorrent to me.

Sometimes I think we place too much value on human life. Its a cycle. One that always ends eventually anyway.
Why not have the right to dictate how it goes?
Maybe some dont want to live to 107 and have their arse wiped for them?

But I'm on a tangent.
I cant imagine the pain this poor woman must be suffering to think this option best
And doctors agree?
Must be pretty bad for her.

 

[Deleted member 29920]

Reading about different chemicals having effects on brain, i.e. High serotonin = not depressed etc. What if we can change desire to end our own lives? Even if isolated (as I currently am), I still want to believe there's hope, that life can improve over time.

 

[HFA_Cat]

I'm a big believer in having the right to die when you choose. For me, it's absurd that suicide is against the law. I mean, what could the punishment possibly be?

We treat our animals better in many cases then we do people in the same or worse condition. I would never let a cat, a horse or a dog suffer the way some of my relatives have when passing with cancer. If someone is in agony, and you know that it's only going to get worse with death as the sole outcome, I cannot see why allowing them the dignity and respect of choosing their own end would be anything other than a good thing.

I've had this wretched PTSD for more than 3 years now. Suicidal ideation and all. For me, PTSD at its worst is like looking down a long long black tunnel with nothing at the end. I'm finally back in therapy, and my T has helped me see that there just might be something at the end of that tunnel, even though it's not anything I ever expected.

Even one more year with that utter horror of endless dark nights... And I'd have made reservations for that place in a heartbeat. I'm lucky to have the T that I do, this I know.

Being forced to live on and on feeling that utterly wretched is a special from of torture. If I saw one of my animals laying around not eating, not able to sleep, dull, lifeless and utterly miserable for more than 2 months... I would consider putting them down. If ever it lasted for months more I would put them down. I can't believe we do less for humans.

I know that's not a standard way to think, but I'm all for the freedom to make choices for oneself.

 

[EveHarrington]

I'm a big believer in having the right to die when you choose. For me, it's absurd that suicide is agai...

The law says that we can be hospitalized against our will until they deem us not a danger to ourselves anymore. (This is the punishment.) The 72 hour release time only holds for those not in danger to themselves.

 

[joeylittle]

I would never let a cat, a horse or a dog suffer the way some of my relatives have when passing with cancer. If someone is in agony, and you know that it's only going to get worse with death as the sole outcome, I cannot see why allowing them the dignity and respect of choosing their own end would be anything other than a good thing.

I think it's difficult, but important, to keep the comparisons on the same plane.

The majority outcome of cancer, once it's passed a certain point, is indeed scientifically known. Continued decline to death is a prognosis that affects many people with many incurable or debilitating conditions. I do believe that the conversation about the right-to-die is most difficult, for those individuals. It's hard to think that they should not have the right to choose how much pain to avoid vs. go through.

With PTSD - with most mental health diagnoses - the majority outcome is not known with scientific certainty. It's just not. Until they know what causes this, really - and why or why not it can or cannot be treated fully - really - then, who is to say? Wouldn't you hate to be the person who decided to end their life because of their condition, only to have there be a major breakthrough 12 months later that would have given you some real relief?

Well, you'd not know, because you'd be dead - and that's the rationale behind such tight controls around elective suicide and mental illness. I don't know how much of the thinking is rooted in the medical profession's drive to conserve life at all costs (though that point of view seems to be changing), and how much is in knowing that mental health can be turned around; regardless, PTSD is not a terminal diagnosis. Continued decline to death is not a prognosis in this case.

Mental illness isn't cancer - cancer is sometimes a useful comparison device, that's all. When it comes to the right to die, mental illness and cancer cannot be compared.

Animals: if I had an animal that was listless, could not/would not eat, and was exhibiting failure to thrive despite trying every possible medical intervention and every possible diagnostic test to determine the root cause - and if all the veterinarians could do nothing but shake their heads, call it a mystery, and tell me that my options were to keep my animal comfortable or have them put down...well, already we've stepped outside of a useful comparison to PTSD, unless:

You have tried every possible medical intervention: this means, you've done PE therapy with people who specialize in it, EMDR, same, SE, same, Experimental drug trials, same, TF-CBT, same...you've gone to groups, you've changed your diet, you've taken care of yourself psychically...you've done it all. How many people struggling with mental illness can legitimately say they've done it all? Hell, I'm one of the most aggressive people I know, when it comes to pursuing a solution to my depression. I've done a lot. And I know exactly what I haven't tried yet as well. So when I think about ending my own life specifically because it's been demonstrated already that my type of depression is resistant to just about everything available - well, I have to remember that there are things I have not tried. I've chosen to not try them - and would I rather live and find relief (even with challenging side-effects) or die, never having had the chance to experience joy? As suicidal as I am, the answer is live and feel better.

You have tried every possible diagnostic test: they are still discovering the diagnostics for mental conditions. That area of science is just a baby, right now. So, the problem is, how can you believe there is no hope for you if no-one really understands exactly what you have in the first place, because there's no quantifiable way to diagnose it? You can't. So you cannot have tried every test. Which means, you cannot decide that there is nothing left to do.

So: no, it's not the same as handling an animal, either. Not at all the same.

Being forced to live on and on feeling that utterly wretched is a special from of torture.

Yes, it is. I'm really glad you found a therapist that is helping you reverse out of that black-hole tunnel you were in for 3 years. I hope that it doesn't dip that low for you again.

And I'm not directly attacking your post; you mentioned two very common comparisons for why people suffering with mental illness should be allowed to make their own choice about suicide (cancer and animals), and for some reason, it's really been on my mind today, how these are false equivalencies.

To any person struggling with mental illness, suicide can seem like the only escape hatch. Even when it's unwanted, it can look like the only way out. If I were to be honest, there are certain mental conditions that I do think might qualify for euthanasia, under very specific circumstances. But, PTSD is for sure not among them. As unsurvivable as it seems to be, sometimes - it's only seems. And I hope that when people feel like they are at the end of that rope, they can remember that they most likely have not come close to trying everything that can be tried.

I can also say: if there were not such a prohibition against suicide - legally, medically, ethically - I don't know what would have kept me alive this long. It probably sounds totally backwards, but I'm personally grateful that I'm afraid of death, and that it's reinforced on me constantly that I don't have the right to take my own life, because my viewpoint is skewed by mental illness. That wanting to die is not the natural, healthy state of a human being - and that I'm not able to evaluate it, because I'm not healthy right now.

 

[anthony]

You can read this at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...o-euthanasia-due-to-severe-ptsd-a7023666.html

 

[intothelight]

When it comes to the right to die, mental illness and cancer cannot be compared.

I want to click like about a thousand time to that! I have steered clear of these threads as personally it all hits too close. A few years ago, my own symptoms were so intense that I couldn't see a reason for living and very rationally I could have argued for my own death. Afraid to go out of the house, relationships in shambles, dropping out of school, business failing, an ex loose and on the hunt, children facing threats and a trial, death of my father, and my own inability to even do something as simple as take a shower was reinforcing my own uselessness and need to not be part of this world. I was more dead weight than anything else. But what I thought was rational was anything but, and the craziest part was the diagnosis of cancer and the dying that kicked me into living.

Yes, the cancer is terminal..but not today or tomorrow. PTSD can be terminal if it keeps me from living. Perhaps instead of investing resources in analyzing ways to end life, it is better suited to find things that enable people to live life. Also, living doesn't mean that we are free from pain as pain is a part of life and it is just that no one really even talks about it. With the pain of mental illness, it is real, it is debilitating, it robs you of your desire to live, but it can also be transient and it can get better. It is find the how and getting there.

Yes, there will come a time this cancer will come back and it won't be defeated. I fully understand how people die of it and that is a reality, and I have my own arrangements so my family isn't burdened with the decisions at that time. None of those include suicide, but they do not involve extending the inevitable by using extreme measures and letting nature take its course. But when that time comes it is the end as there is nothing beyond that; however, when dealing with PTSD there will be new treatments, symptoms do spike and wane and as long as you can draw breath there is hope.

Maybe perhaps instead of finding ways to kill people, we need to find ways to kill the depression and pain and focus on life.

 

[void]

I'm glad she is at peace.

Now, LET'S K**L THE DEMONSPAWN(S) THAT ABUSED HER:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

but you just know they are not even considering that........fvck this hopeless planet:mad:!

 

[HFA_Cat]

Interesting thread!! I take y'all's point on the difference between cancer & ptsd, to a degree. Of course PTSD isn't a death sentence such as cancer: not a physical one, at any rate. The T I had (notice the past tense!) told me that PTSD was indeed curable "in most cases." I always flinch when I hear that as I'm usually the exception to any rule: it is what it is.

I tried EMDR, and CBT. Lucky to get that far as my stupid butt can't leave the dang house. Did learn that my T permitted Skype. Not all Ts do, that's for sure. So it's a shade more difficult for me to hop around and give different Ts, and therapies, a shot at working. Not when I durn near have to be blindfolded and knocked over the head one good time to even walk out the door!

I don't (thank gawd) do the suicidal ideation thing often. Perhaps 8 times over the past 3 years, and only twice seriously considering the hows and so on. But as dreadful as I felt during those two episodes, if the day comes when I can look back and say "Man, I just lived an entire year (or two) feeling exactly that HORRIBLE - and likely no end in sight," then I want the right to do my thing. Just because it's not a literal death sentence doesn't mean it's not the most excrutiating agony I've been through, and I've been through some physical crap.

As for animals, as it turns my cats do have PTSD: they too were abused. Luckily, there's an animal energy healer in my area and only one of the three is still suffering at all: he's still much, much better than he was. OR again if he was losing weight and utterly miserable, I'd see to him. We are responsible for them. Without me he'd never have had the damn PTSD for one thing. I take that responsibility very seriously indeed: my animals are well taken care of, and I think very dimly indeed of those who treat theirs badly. Letting one suffer on and on for any reason isn't taking good care: in the wild, they can slink off and simply starve. Domesticated beasts have ready food, etc. In some cases we prolong their misery.

And hey if they DID come up with a miracle cure a year after I punched my ticket, I'd be cheering from the other side! You likely already know exactly how godawful you can feel with this cursed, wretched disease. YEARS of that? Oh hell no.