Next year's expansion of the criteria for medically assisted death will allow Canadians like Lisa Pauli, whose sole underlying condition is mental illness, the choice to die in this way.
As a mental health counselor, I’m very familiar with the wealth of psychological literature that documents how suicide attempts are overwhelmingly the product of impulses that occur in very short-lived moments of utter despair, and that most survivors of SAs regret making them.
However, I am also intimately familiar with how horrendously torturous life can be, even when one’s external circumstances aren’t that bad, and it is my firm belief that it should be an inalienable human right to “get off the ride” so to speak. To that end, I’m for governments providing suicide assistance to people who demonstrate a prolonged desire to end their own lives that cannot be reasonably argued to be an impulse due to temporarily depressed mood. There do need to be limitations to protect people from acting rashly or on deluded beliefs that stem from psychosis or mania (e.g. a schizophrenic person wanting to kill themselves because they believe they’re a host for the Devil as opposed to the much more rational reason of simply being sick of dealing with the illness itself), but overall I’m against requiring people to have a terminal illness or even just requiring them to get treatment for their depression. IMO, right to die should be universal, and restrictions on it should require strong arguments and support. You want to die because your weird religious beliefs deem it a sin to live past 30? Well…not my cup’o’tea, but that’s your right.
I also just kind of think making suicide illegal is stupid. Seriously suicidal people are going to kill themselves regardless of the law; all making it illegal does is force these folks to go about it via means that may be either ineffectual and self-harming and/or risk harming others.
If the government isn’t going to bother to help these people why force them to stay alive if they have really thought about it and would rather be dead? People kill themselves for a variety of reasons, at least in this case they tried to get help and can die peacefully instead of some of the other horrific methods desperate people end up using.
We should be expanding access to mental health treatment, fixing income inequality, stop fucking over disabled people, etc. But that’s obviously the opposite of what has been happening, and I agree with you… People should have the right to die if that’s what they really want given the situation they are in. And if that is genocide, that genocide has already been happening just in a much more brutal way. It’s not like someone who bothers to go through this process who gets rejected is just going to be like “oh well, the government said I can’t end my life guess I need to listen”
I suppose you’re probably the best person to ask about this. Do you have a grasp on how much of the “people regret their failed SAs” phenomenon is due to the classic “I realized in that moment that life was worth living and I made a terrible decision” thought, versus things like being hospitalized (most likely including time in the psych ward) after the fact, long term consequences (which may include injuries, disfigurement, long term physical/cognitive/other problems, six figure hospital bills in the US, etc), shame about the whole matter which may include shame that “they couldn’t even do that right”, etc…?
My understanding is that it’s mostly a mix of in-the-moment and shortly-afterwards responses that range from instant regret to frustration to relief to hope, etc. Then there are those who fall back easily into despair, but they’re in the minority and there are usually very clear reasons they have a harder time recovering. I can tell you anecdotally from my own practice that while my patients have certainly minded the inconvenience and degradation of being hospitalized against their wills, of those who have been hospitalized over an actual suicide attempt (i.e. not merely the potential for one seen in intense suicidal ideation), none have complained about the care they received in the wake of said attempt. They know—in that instance—it’s appropriate.
I don’t have the access to professional papers that I used to, but this page from the Harvard School of Public Health should tell you something about what the literature says regarding suicide attempts and their likelihood of recurring.
I know this is anecdotal, but I’ve had a failed suicide attempt which I only survived with medical intervention and pretty much everything u/asparagus said above was spot on. I never had any regret from deciding after-the-fact that I wanted to live, it just never happened for me. The only regret I have is that it wasn’t able to work - because all of the fallout that came from it has been worse than what led me to that decision in the first place.
the attempt itself was something I had been thinking about for a while and prepared the items to do it with quite a bit before that day. but on the day it happened something had just boiled over, can’t even remember what it was for the life of me. so there’s an element of impulsiveness there, but all that did was set the date so to speak. it’s been around 3ish years since then and it’s kind of surprising how much of my time is spent thinking about it all still. from the moment I woke up in the ER to now there’s just this dread that is always present. any time I have difficulty with really anything now, I’m always just thinking about how I made the decision to not participate in any of this and I shouldn’t have to deal with it at all - and that itself makes me really bitter/jaded I think.
anyways just wanted to share because the person before you hit the nail on the head for what my experience with it all has been
That sounds like a lot to deal with. I would hope you’re getting some professional help. If not, you can always either call your insurance company for referrals to MH services or just dial 988 for government referrals. And if you don’t have much contact with friends or family or some other support group, please contact NAMI.
As a mental health counselor, I’m very familiar with the wealth of psychological literature that documents how suicide attempts are overwhelmingly the product of impulses that occur in very short-lived moments of utter despair, and that most survivors of SAs regret making them.
However, I am also intimately familiar with how horrendously torturous life can be, even when one’s external circumstances aren’t that bad, and it is my firm belief that it should be an inalienable human right to “get off the ride” so to speak. To that end, I’m for governments providing suicide assistance to people who demonstrate a prolonged desire to end their own lives that cannot be reasonably argued to be an impulse due to temporarily depressed mood. There do need to be limitations to protect people from acting rashly or on deluded beliefs that stem from psychosis or mania (e.g. a schizophrenic person wanting to kill themselves because they believe they’re a host for the Devil as opposed to the much more rational reason of simply being sick of dealing with the illness itself), but overall I’m against requiring people to have a terminal illness or even just requiring them to get treatment for their depression. IMO, right to die should be universal, and restrictions on it should require strong arguments and support. You want to die because your weird religious beliefs deem it a sin to live past 30? Well…not my cup’o’tea, but that’s your right.
I also just kind of think making suicide illegal is stupid. Seriously suicidal people are going to kill themselves regardless of the law; all making it illegal does is force these folks to go about it via means that may be either ineffectual and self-harming and/or risk harming others.
If the government isn’t going to bother to help these people why force them to stay alive if they have really thought about it and would rather be dead? People kill themselves for a variety of reasons, at least in this case they tried to get help and can die peacefully instead of some of the other horrific methods desperate people end up using.
We should be expanding access to mental health treatment, fixing income inequality, stop fucking over disabled people, etc. But that’s obviously the opposite of what has been happening, and I agree with you… People should have the right to die if that’s what they really want given the situation they are in. And if that is genocide, that genocide has already been happening just in a much more brutal way. It’s not like someone who bothers to go through this process who gets rejected is just going to be like “oh well, the government said I can’t end my life guess I need to listen”
I suppose you’re probably the best person to ask about this. Do you have a grasp on how much of the “people regret their failed SAs” phenomenon is due to the classic “I realized in that moment that life was worth living and I made a terrible decision” thought, versus things like being hospitalized (most likely including time in the psych ward) after the fact, long term consequences (which may include injuries, disfigurement, long term physical/cognitive/other problems, six figure hospital bills in the US, etc), shame about the whole matter which may include shame that “they couldn’t even do that right”, etc…?
My understanding is that it’s mostly a mix of in-the-moment and shortly-afterwards responses that range from instant regret to frustration to relief to hope, etc. Then there are those who fall back easily into despair, but they’re in the minority and there are usually very clear reasons they have a harder time recovering. I can tell you anecdotally from my own practice that while my patients have certainly minded the inconvenience and degradation of being hospitalized against their wills, of those who have been hospitalized over an actual suicide attempt (i.e. not merely the potential for one seen in intense suicidal ideation), none have complained about the care they received in the wake of said attempt. They know—in that instance—it’s appropriate.
I don’t have the access to professional papers that I used to, but this page from the Harvard School of Public Health should tell you something about what the literature says regarding suicide attempts and their likelihood of recurring.
I know this is anecdotal, but I’ve had a failed suicide attempt which I only survived with medical intervention and pretty much everything u/asparagus said above was spot on. I never had any regret from deciding after-the-fact that I wanted to live, it just never happened for me. The only regret I have is that it wasn’t able to work - because all of the fallout that came from it has been worse than what led me to that decision in the first place.
the attempt itself was something I had been thinking about for a while and prepared the items to do it with quite a bit before that day. but on the day it happened something had just boiled over, can’t even remember what it was for the life of me. so there’s an element of impulsiveness there, but all that did was set the date so to speak. it’s been around 3ish years since then and it’s kind of surprising how much of my time is spent thinking about it all still. from the moment I woke up in the ER to now there’s just this dread that is always present. any time I have difficulty with really anything now, I’m always just thinking about how I made the decision to not participate in any of this and I shouldn’t have to deal with it at all - and that itself makes me really bitter/jaded I think.
anyways just wanted to share because the person before you hit the nail on the head for what my experience with it all has been
That sounds like a lot to deal with. I would hope you’re getting some professional help. If not, you can always either call your insurance company for referrals to MH services or just dial 988 for government referrals. And if you don’t have much contact with friends or family or some other support group, please contact NAMI.
thanks, I have a pretty good support network to help deal with things. also have a therapist and psychiatrist that I see regularly