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News Doctor-Assisted Death For Those Living With Ptsd

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anthony

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I'm not real sure about this. My opinion is quite mixed. Do you want die because of PTSD or because you're depressed because of PTSD? That would be my first argument.

N.S. woman pushing for doctor-assisted death for those living with PTSD

"I can't see why (PTSD) would not be included under the current regulations," said Sperry. "It's enduring, it's intolerable suffering if the person can't find a treatment that they are pleased with - all of those things would allow them to make the request.”

http://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/n-s-woma...ed-death-for-those-living-with-ptsd-1.2810806

This, from a legal view, would be difficult to ever prove due to the sheer number of choices available for treatment. Basically, if you didn't try every available prescription drug, naturopathic, then type of therapy... WOW, that alone would take more than a lifetime if you give each option the required treatment length to determine improvement or not.

What do you think about this?
 
Someone with a mental illness really can't make a clear decision about whether they want to die or not.
I think that is interesting, actually. Especially your wording, because it doesn't pertain to the capacity of the person. PTSD now has a well documented court history that it does not legally form an argument for incapacity of thought, i.e. not an excuse to kill or harm another. Mitigating circumstance only.

Depression is pretty much combined with PTSD -- is anyone depressed really capable to accurately make the decision they want to die, with reasoning? Those who survived a real effort often state how they changed their mind after it was too late. That simple change in mindset... says a lot between the mindset at doing versus in the process of happening.

Or is this that core functional part of our brain that won't allow us to kill ourselves without a force applied? i.e. you cannot drown yourself.
 
I can only speak from my personal experience. I have schizophrenia and have had it since I was 9. I had a very serious suicide attempt when I was 15. I won't say how I did it because if someone else did it they would be surely dead. I wasn't thinking straight and I am glad now at 30 to be alive. Since then I have been hospitalized twice for being suicidal. If there had been a doctor that would have assisted me in those times I wouldn't be here. I'm glad that it was not an option for me.
 
As a Canadian and severe PTSD suffer, who has tried to advocate for actual trauma treatment to be covered through Ohip for any properly diagnosed PTSD sufferer due to any criterion A or A's, with zero success and no one in a position to effect positive change giving two &!its other than bs and no action lip service-this infuriates me. I have not written on this site in ages but jumped backed on just to say my 2 cents. This country refuses to address the facts and more precisely the medical facts and properly address them. Helping to kill someone and not providing treatment, whatever that may look like, and while people are understandably devastated and suffering, because competent treatment is simply not available or remotely affordable or even available should be criminal.
 
while people are understandably devastated and suffering, because competent treatment is simply not available
The problem here however, is that there is no effective known solution for PTSD. Effective in the scheme of PTSD is enduring a full course of PE, EMDR or TF-CBT, if not combination, and having a 60% effective recovery rate. Combined, they effectively (using that word loosely) recover about 90% of all sufferers. That still leaves 10% shit out of luck after known effective treatment. If those don't work, then you're part of the 10% searching for any myriad of treatment options available to try.

In essence, you could use my above argument as justification for doctor assisted death, BUT, even that 10% of people, they aren't dying. Mental illness is a shifting dynamic. You have good days, bad days... good months, bad months. Then you have environmental factors which affect mental suffering. Job loss, unemployment, relationship failure, physical health, activity level and socialisation, so forth. These affect people without PTSD negatively, towards suicide, depression, years of spiralled drug use or such... yet when they change, change their environment, their circumstance, suddenly their mental health changes for the positive.

I think mental health for assisted death is a very tough call, and anyone would be hard pressed to dismiss the existing evidence and arguments that any pro could solely justify. With physical medicine, and thus assisted death... they have quite valid and certain known outcomes for conditions that meet such requirement. Mental health... pffft... completely up in the air and unknown, day to day.
 
I'm going to, cautiously, suggest that they should be included. (Or, more accurately, I guess, that "we" should.) But I've got to say the whole topic worries, me. I think there are times when a person's death should be made easier. If I don't have to make my dog suffer, why should I have to make my dad suffer? But, I worry about how easy it is to pressure people into making a decision. For all kinds of reasons. This has to be looked at pretty carefully, no matter what.

But, if someone, during their GOOD days, decides that they've had enough, if they've been in therapy, if they can convince people they know what they're saying and thinking, not just depressed, if someone in that situation says "that's it, I don't want to do this anymore", I'm not so sure we have a right to stand in the way of that choice.

I've never been in any grand rush to die on a good day. On a good day, I might think "I hope I die on a day like today!", but I'm not looking to hurry things along. And, on a good day, I know that bad days don't last forever. I can't imagine just wanting to give up........ Well, ok, maybe I CAN "imagine" it. If you can't find a way to live with it, if your life has no meaning, if it's really true that no one would miss you or people would be better off without you, maybe it really ought to be ok. Shouldn't the individual have the final say? Granted, you can always use a more conventional method of suicide, but those tend to be messy, risky, and more traumatic for any survivors. (Or for who ever finds the body.) There's one member here who's gone on and on about a problem that seems horrible to her and kind of trivial to me..... Sometimes I've thought that, if that's the way she really feels (and I'm not sure it is), maybe she should just be allowed to die and be done with it. Seems like a waste, but we find lots of ways to waste our lives.

I don't know..... I don't like the idea of giving up, but I don't know that I have the right to stand in someone's way if they've really and truly, on a non-depressed day, decided to give up.
 
I think it's bullshit.

I'm all for doctor assisted suicide. Mercy kills are just that. Mercy. But you wanna kill yourself because you hate life? Man up & do it your own damn self. If you want me to kill you, you'd better already be f*cking dying. Badly.

My personal belief.

If your death hurts, die better. But if your life hurts? Live better.
 
My concern is going to sound crass, I am concerned this is also partially about straight up saving money..There is no cure for PTSD and I'm on the shit end of the spectrum. My concerns are also the serious and extreme lack of knowledge by the medical professionals themselves in this country about what PTSD even is and is not, ( no joke it's brutal here ), the waiting lists of years and the costs forced on the sufferers . This only wastes time and increases stressors. It is wild because we are trying to stop people from committing suicide and then here's an offer to help out..They will pay for the costs of assisisted suicide but not treatment..?What is the monetary value of a human life?

I think there is serious and tremendous concern in Canada about the actual costs of PTSD if it were actually being addressed, because it is not ...so they want to pretend it's not serious really from a treatment availability and affordability perspective , but then at the same time it is also so serious that a doc would help you end it all. It just does not jive..

I do not understand why we do not start also addressing some of the root causes and issues with serious action, that are evidenced and known, rather than ignore the facts as well but that's another thread

I completely understand trying everything and the desperation and pain which seems futile, unfortunately, I live it some days worse than others, as do many others here undoubtedly and I hate it. I just think in Canada we are missing the major and most important and relevant parts at issue in this country and the actual point: sufferers should be provided the proper supports and services quickly and as required which they literally are not being provided , ( any properly diagnosed sufferer, not just a particular group or groups because that is discrimination ), be allowed to establish Safety, which again is often not possible or made impossible often very seemingly on purpose in this country due to costs and lack of accountability often and red tape and bs. It is common sense. I just hope if a PTSD sufferer are on the shit end of the spectrum to still keep trying to find something for today and not give up

I really hope research finds the cure and then this would be a non issue, in the interim I don't know..it seems like a hopeless battle really isn't it..**ck

Today anyways I'd rather go out fighting this damn thing
 
Mental health... pffft... completely up in the air and unknown, day to day.
Exactly. They don't have any real predictive diagnostic tools/markers. I think they'll have a hard enough time dealing with requests from dementia patients who are still lucid; wait til the dementia has fully taken hold, or not? And at least there, there's general confidence that it's a progressive, irreversible diagnosis. Depression can feel like a progressive, irreversible diagnosis. And sometimes it is, but sometimes not.
 
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