Friday 15 March 2013

Suicide? Or a rational decision?






It is not clear to read so I'll repeat a few of the more significant sentences.

* Dr. McKay said men over 75 had one of the highest age specific suicide rates in the country.  
* Dr. MacKay said anxiety and depression could be successfully treated, but this meant access to appropriate mental care, which was often not available for older people.
* Professor Alemida's research, which surveyed 21,290 people aged 60 to 101, found almost 5 per cent acknowledged the presence of suicidal thoughts.

And then the article talks about various strategies to reduce the incidence of suicide, such as 'facilitating the development of supportive and meaningful social networks.'

Throughout the article, it assumed that thoughts of suicide are irrational and the result of a sick mind. Nowhere is it acknowledged that when life becomes a tedious and painful chore, it could be far better to die.

This - * Professor Alemida's research, which surveyed 21,290 people aged 60 to 101, found almost 5 per cent acknowledged the presence of suicidal thoughts. 
Probably, far more than 5% had considered suicide as an option when the time came,  but by the time a person is 60,  they know perfectly well that admitting to 'suicidal thoughts' would be taken as a sign of mental illness rather than a rational response to the circumstances.

I very well remember being in a Nursing Home visiting a resident, and seeing a young nurse trying to tell a tiny, skinny, bent old lady that she should stand by herself because she was pregnant and trying to lift her might harm the baby.  The old lady was pretty deaf as well as everything else, and I do hope that she did not get the message that she should be feeling guilty. That poor old girl might have weighed something around 6 stone - not very much. Most of us are a lot more substantial. What a horrible thought that we can be abused because we can't do enough for ourselves. Yes, death is better than that.

But what if the nurses are really, really nice?  What if the nursing home residents only know kindness? 

What if you can't see very well, can't read at all, can't hear very well, can't keep yourself clean, can't walk, dribble when eating -  the home can be the best in the world, but old, old age is crippling, humiliating and usually painful. And by the time anyone reaches that stage, it is past the time when they can organise their own suicide.

Being dead is a lot better than being like that. In the current legal climate, the choice is to take your own life while you can, and there are still some things to be enjoyed,  or leave it too late and die a miserable, protracted death.

My deepest wish is that by the time I am in those circumstances, I can organise a kind and gentle death for myself without getting anyone else into trouble.  Our dogs and cats have that. Why can't we?




I do not dread death. It is nothing  - just the end of life.  I do dread the helplessness of extreme old age.  Being able to end life when I choose  -  why, then there would be nothing to dread about old age.

Euthanasia.  It should be free, easily accessable, and, of course, legal.  In surveys, there is a consistent result of around 80% in favour. Why then, can we not have it?  It is needed.  It may be suicide, but it is not the result of depression and mental illness, it is a rational and reasoned response to circumstances.




14 comments:

  1. I agree with you. I can see wanting to end my own life when I feel it is time, if only I can manage a way that isn't too painful. It sickens me that the laws in our country treat humans worse than we treat our pets. We are willing to painlessly put them to sleep when the time is right, but we won't allow this for humans. I'm not religious, so I see no reason why I should have to suffer due to religious philosophies. When I don't want to be here anymore, I shouldn't have to be, and I shouldn't have to suffer in order to go.

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    1. Thanks for the comment, Ted. Religion is no reason to force life onto a person long after they are ready to die.

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  2. My mother in law was in a care facility and suffering from very advanced dementia, she was no longer the person we knew as Doll. She was prone to chest infection which were always treated enthusiastically though for two years this poor old lady had not opened her eyes. Eventually we persuaded the staff that were she to suffer another infection the better thing would be to make her comfortable and calm and let her go. They did. It was a blessing but what torture had this happy, musical, family minded lady suffered for the two years in which she didn't even open her eyes and didn't know us. http://www.shortbreadstories.co.uk/story/view/through_my_eyes_i_see_it/#axzz2NkA5YIh0

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    1. I read your short story - so very, very good.

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  3. Having mental health services available to elderly people doesn't necessarily mean that their suicidal thoughts are symptoms of a mental disorder (like clinical depression). As a retired mental health professional and geriatric mental health specialist whose 79th birthday looms just 2 months away, there are two issues that I find of paramount importance here. The first is treating elderly people (nursing home residents or not) with the same dignity and respect that we ought to treat everyone else. Not having mental health services available for them is one sign that we don't consider them worth the cost. My experience as a nursing home consultant showed two things: (1) most residents are bored because they have nothing meaningful to do. (2) When they are given the opportunity and the resources to do something meaningful, their depression disappears and they become active.

    When it comes to living as a vegetable, I agree with you about allowing (or assisting) life to end. I have no interest whatsoever in lying abed in a nursing home, blind and unable to move or think, until my body stops working and dies.

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  4. This is something I have also had to think about. I would rather end my life in a controlled pain free and calm method than have my family (my kids) watch as cancer eats me away. Plus the pain that comes with this end terrifies me. Suicide should be readily available and free to those who meet certain criteria. I've been to the dignitas site and they explain their methods and criteria very well. As others have said, we wouldn't let our animals suffer, but our family get long drawn out deaths. There's something wrong with that.

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  5. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    1. Removed only because the comment was duplicated,

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  6. I know someone living with a terminal illness - a slow deterioration. Her doctor has given her some very strong pain-killers - to stop the pain. He has explained just how many to take, and she will go to sleep and not wake up. But the medication is to make the pain go away, not to kill her. That makes it legal, and it made my friend very much happier. I wish everyone who needs it had such a doctor. I think it may be quite common, more so than we know. I hope so.
    Death itself is not so terrible. I have seen people die, and the exact moment they pass away is not always easy to determine. No-one should die when they have dependant children. Sometimes it happens. But even then, it is not the death that is terrible, but the loss of a mother. There is nothing that can help with that. I feel very deeply for such families. Marj.

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  7. Oh dear. Lisa asked me to remove one of her comments because it was duplicated but 'this comment has been removed by a blog administrator' sounds like there was something wrong with it. There was not. It was just a duplicate.

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  8. In my opinion, I am alive while my brain functions. Take that away from me (dementia) and I might as well be a cat. I'd rather go into the long night. I support voluntary euthenasia. Why prolong something not worth the effort? I watched my mum die of bowel cancer, dosed to the hilt with morphine so she just lay in the bed for the many days before she passed away. An the indignity of old age - one of my sisters died last September. She couldn't do anything for herself and said more than once she wished she were dead. Pain, suffering, less dignity than a baby - who needs it? I'll find some way to avoid all that. And no, I'm not mentally ill - but I am over 60.

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    1. Thanks for the comment, Greta. I don't think I've ever spoken to anyone who is against a voluntary and easy death when the time comes. But wasn't there a newspaper story recently about an old man who helped his old wife to die? It was because she was in so much pain. He was charged with murder (of course) but allowed out on bail, and managed to die himself before being brought to trial. This sort of mercy is so very far removed from 'murder.' It should never be called murder.

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  9. Interesting and useful information that you have provided here on your post.Thanks.

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  10. My latest books speaks of Nursing Homes and speaks of euthanasia.
    'The Death Mother.' (M. A. McRae)

    Here is the start -
    It was a dream that began it, not just the dream, but the feeling that went with it - the feeling of an enormous love and compassion. I held the poor, poor, skinny old lady in my arms. I held her with love, and she felt no pain from all of the sore spots and all of the aches that go with an old, old body. She weighed nothing at all, and I held her so gently. She needed to die. For years she had yearned for an end to the suffering. She wanted to endure no longer.

    And I gave her that. That body in my arms, weightless, feeling no pain for the first time in years. And she died. I gave her that. She died, and I carefully put her back in her bed and covered her. She was finally gone, finally free, finally without pain. Love. Compassion. And I freed her.

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