So as seems to be fairly common at the moment, as I ready myself to talk about a subject, a media frenzy kicks up about the same subject. Today it was the death of Tony Scott, the film director who grew up within miles of where I live, who ended his own life apparently as the result of receiving a grim medical diagnosis.
The main sticking point when discussing suicide seems to be an innate need to justify and understand the act in an objective fashion. To lay out a one size fits all set of circumstances under which we as the mass conscious can accept the act, without attaching to it a prerequisite of an indefinable intention based almost deontological value judgement.
Cases like Mr. Scott's are the border on which Assisted Suicide advocates rally, they argue that the circumstances of soon to be diminishing mental capacity, physical capability and immanent pain mandate a stance of allowing the individual the right to make autonomous decisions while still possible, and aiding in the facilitation of such acts if the agent is no longer capable.
This is a stance I just can't see as being fully realised. If you assign a value on life, and you state that that value can be removed/ negated by adding in a set amount of future pain and debilitation it's ultimately arbitrary to overly define those required negatives. Although the need to stringently define suicide is felt even in it's title, and the way it is commonly used only for those deaths in which some morally acceptable condition is absent, voluntary euthanasia, martyrdom. Thus attaching a negative connotation to any perceived suicide attempt, whenever the word is used, the decision to end the life of the agent by the agent themselves already judged as flawed and unworthy of full understanding.
If the intention of an act is to cause ones own death, knowingly and with full capacity to make said decision, I see no reason at all to relegate that decision into a subcategory of suicide, Voluntary Euthanasia is merely acceptable suicide, understandable by the masses, and Martyrdom merely self annihilation for a "greater cause". Arguing the merits of intention, be they to escape future pain or lack of capacity, or dying for the greater good I believe skips the main point. The autonomy of the one making the choice.
I see no reason to deny the rational choices of any individual with the capacity to make them. Who else can define the value subjectively speaking of their own life apart from the agent themselves.
I would grant anyone with the capacity to make their own decision the right to self autonomy.
Anon Anon
Monday, 20 August 2012
Saturday, 18 August 2012
Depression ..being repressed by hopelessness.
So after yesterdays post there was something I actively wanted to address, but again I think I need to put my thoughts in order before I attempt it at a later date. The surest way I can see of doing such, is to lay out my history with depression. It's something I've written about in the past, but time as always provides perspective, and often the things we wish could be left behind are the things we need to revisit.
When I think about my life, in general broad sweeps of time, I remember having a happy childhood. Yet when I actively think about my childhood, I don't remember being carefree and full of the joys of being a kid after being about 8. I began to notice a distance between myself and my peer group, I was already the youngest kid in my class, but emotionally I seemed to always be immature. I also remember being very self conscious, I was constantly being dragged into things I was neither interested in nor ready for. Constantly in fights, but normally because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, or someone else manipulated me into defending them.
I was inept at social politics.
By the time I was 16, I was all but an outcast, and actively began to despise school. Even now I feel very little but pure hatred when I think of my high-school and my treatment within, not only by the students, but by several members of staff as well. Academically I was expected to do well, from being 13 the teachers had told my parents that I was Oxbridge bound, and so the encouragement stopped and the expectation began.
This, I think, was the first real bout of depression, and social anxiety that I suffered through. My attendance trickled down to below the bare minimum required. I can still remember a sunny afternoon sat in my bedroom, staring into a large mirror contemplating serious self harm for the very first time. Then it all got worse, rapidly. I dropped out of school completely, my parents separated and divorced, and I was officially diagnosed with clinical depression, all by the time I was 17.
At 19 I returned to a College, still depressed, feeling worthless because of my failure to keep my life moving, feeling the crushing weight of the lost moments, years of my life. Regrets continued to destroy me, all I could feel was what I had lost. I tried to kill myself in the November, I was hospitalised after taking a massive overdose of pretty much every medication I could lay my hands on, which was needless to say ... substantial. I left a suicide note, I left a video file on my computer explaining everything I felt I had left unsaid, and I went to bed. I woke up about 18 hours later in an agony that I'd never experienced before, and never wish to again.
I kept trying to go back to sleep, to ignore the burning pain, but eventually I went seeking help. I never wanted to HURT myself, I never wanted to cause myself pain. My suicide attempt was the very antithesis of such an act, it was an attempt to stop the pain, because to me my very existence was pain. It was a mercy. I fucked up. My Mom found me, made me explain what was wrong, and this is where things get fuzzy. I remember being in an ambulance, being questioned as to what I'd taken and when. I remember being in a Hospital bed, my Dad was now there, I don't know where my Mom went. I remember my Dad sitting with me while a Doctor hooked me up to an I.V. with some form of antidote to the crap shutting down my organs in my system, I remember telling him I could feel ice flowing up my arm, past my elbow, my shoulder. Then it started to burn. It felt like I was on fire, internally .. and I started to scream. From there on out I hallucinated throughout the night, the next morning I was told I'd had a reaction, but that it was that or live without kidneys, so .. horrific visions of blood and gore it was.
I won't go through my hospital stay, how I heard whispers of pity and condescension, how I scared one of the younger doctors with my emotionless analytical and logical breakdown of why I attempted to end my own life. How a Consultant Psych mentioned schizophrenia after reading and watching what I'd left behind, or being withheld clothing and being watched in the bathroom. The crying of my younger siblings. Or how when it came to being assessed for the "funny farm" I just out-talked the young guy I was left with and told him everything he wanted to hear so I could go home. I was rational, and I'd have passed any capacity test I was put in front of.
Anyways, I returned to College finished and excelled in my education, took all the anti-depressants I was told to, attended every therapy session I was scheduled and ultimately was eventually also diagnosed with agoraphobia.I then went on to have a foreign adventure, fall in love, have my heart broken and go to University.
My next major bout with depression came in my second year of University, one of my best friends died, my girlfriend went on study abroad to Australia, and I felt alone. But I quickly found a GP, started medication and worked through it eventually getting a solid 2:1 and my shit together.
When the Undergrad, Postgrad and love-life all fell away however depression was waiting for me. I'm aware things can get better, I'm aware life can change in an instant, that amazing things can happen. Now however the question I've been left with is, can the hope of something better truly offset the pain of a currently empty and unfulfilled life? I don't know, but I'm still searching daily for enough small moments of joy to make it all worth while.
So what is my depression to me, it's a cold analytical weighing of the good in my life versus the bad. It's an anxiety which freezes me, and locks me into my house, into a room in my house at times. The sure knowledge that acting will lead to pain, and the fear that the pain will tear me apart. It's the cast iron belief that I've already had every golden moment in my life and the rest of it is shit. That my potential was a lie, that what I've become is all I was ever worth. It's waking up crying, and so sad that you can't imagine ever smiling again. It's insomnia, it's going days without sleep, and knowing the longer it lasts the more unhinged you'll become.
It's the clarity that only comes from sitting in a pitch black room with your eyes closed and focusing on the worst aspects of life, it's suffocating. It's not having the energy or desire to move, to eat, to bath, to continue at all. It is not apathy I care very strongly about it all, I'm just left listless and lacking any drive to do anything but avoid more pain.
It's withdrawing, it's literally not speaking to anyone who doesn't force their company on me for weeks, months. Depression is needing to spend every moment alone. It's a crushing weight of guilt.
It's suicidal ideation, it's scouring for every piece of information on ways to end it all. It is knowing, that ending the pain is preferable to living within it.
Anon Anon.
When I think about my life, in general broad sweeps of time, I remember having a happy childhood. Yet when I actively think about my childhood, I don't remember being carefree and full of the joys of being a kid after being about 8. I began to notice a distance between myself and my peer group, I was already the youngest kid in my class, but emotionally I seemed to always be immature. I also remember being very self conscious, I was constantly being dragged into things I was neither interested in nor ready for. Constantly in fights, but normally because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, or someone else manipulated me into defending them.
I was inept at social politics.
By the time I was 16, I was all but an outcast, and actively began to despise school. Even now I feel very little but pure hatred when I think of my high-school and my treatment within, not only by the students, but by several members of staff as well. Academically I was expected to do well, from being 13 the teachers had told my parents that I was Oxbridge bound, and so the encouragement stopped and the expectation began.
This, I think, was the first real bout of depression, and social anxiety that I suffered through. My attendance trickled down to below the bare minimum required. I can still remember a sunny afternoon sat in my bedroom, staring into a large mirror contemplating serious self harm for the very first time. Then it all got worse, rapidly. I dropped out of school completely, my parents separated and divorced, and I was officially diagnosed with clinical depression, all by the time I was 17.
At 19 I returned to a College, still depressed, feeling worthless because of my failure to keep my life moving, feeling the crushing weight of the lost moments, years of my life. Regrets continued to destroy me, all I could feel was what I had lost. I tried to kill myself in the November, I was hospitalised after taking a massive overdose of pretty much every medication I could lay my hands on, which was needless to say ... substantial. I left a suicide note, I left a video file on my computer explaining everything I felt I had left unsaid, and I went to bed. I woke up about 18 hours later in an agony that I'd never experienced before, and never wish to again.
I kept trying to go back to sleep, to ignore the burning pain, but eventually I went seeking help. I never wanted to HURT myself, I never wanted to cause myself pain. My suicide attempt was the very antithesis of such an act, it was an attempt to stop the pain, because to me my very existence was pain. It was a mercy. I fucked up. My Mom found me, made me explain what was wrong, and this is where things get fuzzy. I remember being in an ambulance, being questioned as to what I'd taken and when. I remember being in a Hospital bed, my Dad was now there, I don't know where my Mom went. I remember my Dad sitting with me while a Doctor hooked me up to an I.V. with some form of antidote to the crap shutting down my organs in my system, I remember telling him I could feel ice flowing up my arm, past my elbow, my shoulder. Then it started to burn. It felt like I was on fire, internally .. and I started to scream. From there on out I hallucinated throughout the night, the next morning I was told I'd had a reaction, but that it was that or live without kidneys, so .. horrific visions of blood and gore it was.
I won't go through my hospital stay, how I heard whispers of pity and condescension, how I scared one of the younger doctors with my emotionless analytical and logical breakdown of why I attempted to end my own life. How a Consultant Psych mentioned schizophrenia after reading and watching what I'd left behind, or being withheld clothing and being watched in the bathroom. The crying of my younger siblings. Or how when it came to being assessed for the "funny farm" I just out-talked the young guy I was left with and told him everything he wanted to hear so I could go home. I was rational, and I'd have passed any capacity test I was put in front of.
Anyways, I returned to College finished and excelled in my education, took all the anti-depressants I was told to, attended every therapy session I was scheduled and ultimately was eventually also diagnosed with agoraphobia.I then went on to have a foreign adventure, fall in love, have my heart broken and go to University.
My next major bout with depression came in my second year of University, one of my best friends died, my girlfriend went on study abroad to Australia, and I felt alone. But I quickly found a GP, started medication and worked through it eventually getting a solid 2:1 and my shit together.
When the Undergrad, Postgrad and love-life all fell away however depression was waiting for me. I'm aware things can get better, I'm aware life can change in an instant, that amazing things can happen. Now however the question I've been left with is, can the hope of something better truly offset the pain of a currently empty and unfulfilled life? I don't know, but I'm still searching daily for enough small moments of joy to make it all worth while.
So what is my depression to me, it's a cold analytical weighing of the good in my life versus the bad. It's an anxiety which freezes me, and locks me into my house, into a room in my house at times. The sure knowledge that acting will lead to pain, and the fear that the pain will tear me apart. It's the cast iron belief that I've already had every golden moment in my life and the rest of it is shit. That my potential was a lie, that what I've become is all I was ever worth. It's waking up crying, and so sad that you can't imagine ever smiling again. It's insomnia, it's going days without sleep, and knowing the longer it lasts the more unhinged you'll become.
It's the clarity that only comes from sitting in a pitch black room with your eyes closed and focusing on the worst aspects of life, it's suffocating. It's not having the energy or desire to move, to eat, to bath, to continue at all. It is not apathy I care very strongly about it all, I'm just left listless and lacking any drive to do anything but avoid more pain.
It's withdrawing, it's literally not speaking to anyone who doesn't force their company on me for weeks, months. Depression is needing to spend every moment alone. It's a crushing weight of guilt.
It's suicidal ideation, it's scouring for every piece of information on ways to end it all. It is knowing, that ending the pain is preferable to living within it.
Anon Anon.
Friday, 17 August 2012
Self-Determination .. real Freedom.
Ok, so I'm going to get the auto-biographical and personal side of this out of the way with first. I fully intended to keep posting here without any real breaks to my writing, honestly I need the release and platform on which to vent.
My latest post was on the 19th of July, on the 21st my Step-Grandmother died at home. Hence the break. But back to Isabella, she was 91 and six weeks before her death she had been in respite care while my Parents went on a holiday. Her eyesight was deteriorating and her mobility was becoming increasingly more limited, but at 91 the biggest health crises of her life was having her appendix removed at 14.
When she came out of care however, a stay which lasted only 3 weeks, it was with massive haematoma's on both legs due to falls while in care, and more tellingly a diagnosis of Vascular Dementia. Gone was the self reliant ex Nurse, and here was a frail, confused, frightened and very ill woman. She suddenly needed full-time care, and it took 3 of us to provide it.
When she died it was sudden, and she was with her son (my step-dad) with me in the next room over. Meaningless platitudes about having a good innings, and a decent run followed from all, and brought comfort to none. Death itself was quick and I believe painless, but those final six weeks were hell. It was one degradation after another, and there was nothing intrinsically valuable left in life at that point.
She was lacking all in capacity, autonomy and ability for self-determination by the end. She was also lacking in all quality of life, and this was merely a severe 6 week decline. I cannot imagine the assault on the life not only of the sufferer but also on the family that a long term battle with dementia must be, it has left us all shaken, and questioning.
I cannot myself imagine an end more horrifying, and if I could leave legally binding future directives right now setting out a self determined plan for a death with dignity in the event of such a devastating loss of capacity I would have already done so.
The High-Court has thrown the ball to Parliament however via the Tony Nicklinson case, and christ I hope they get their skates on. I don't often praise the current Tory regime, but thank whatever deity you wish that they're not a bunch of religious fundamentalists like their American counterparts. The GOP would proudly proclaim the sanctity of life and let all in it's wake be fucked. I have higher hopes for Europe, and the U.K. in particular. Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg and Switzerland leading the way to dignity and a progressive stance on end of life determination.
I'll leave it at that, I don't want to get bottled down tonight ...
Anon Anon
My latest post was on the 19th of July, on the 21st my Step-Grandmother died at home. Hence the break. But back to Isabella, she was 91 and six weeks before her death she had been in respite care while my Parents went on a holiday. Her eyesight was deteriorating and her mobility was becoming increasingly more limited, but at 91 the biggest health crises of her life was having her appendix removed at 14.
When she came out of care however, a stay which lasted only 3 weeks, it was with massive haematoma's on both legs due to falls while in care, and more tellingly a diagnosis of Vascular Dementia. Gone was the self reliant ex Nurse, and here was a frail, confused, frightened and very ill woman. She suddenly needed full-time care, and it took 3 of us to provide it.
When she died it was sudden, and she was with her son (my step-dad) with me in the next room over. Meaningless platitudes about having a good innings, and a decent run followed from all, and brought comfort to none. Death itself was quick and I believe painless, but those final six weeks were hell. It was one degradation after another, and there was nothing intrinsically valuable left in life at that point.
She was lacking all in capacity, autonomy and ability for self-determination by the end. She was also lacking in all quality of life, and this was merely a severe 6 week decline. I cannot imagine the assault on the life not only of the sufferer but also on the family that a long term battle with dementia must be, it has left us all shaken, and questioning.
I cannot myself imagine an end more horrifying, and if I could leave legally binding future directives right now setting out a self determined plan for a death with dignity in the event of such a devastating loss of capacity I would have already done so.
The High-Court has thrown the ball to Parliament however via the Tony Nicklinson case, and christ I hope they get their skates on. I don't often praise the current Tory regime, but thank whatever deity you wish that they're not a bunch of religious fundamentalists like their American counterparts. The GOP would proudly proclaim the sanctity of life and let all in it's wake be fucked. I have higher hopes for Europe, and the U.K. in particular. Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg and Switzerland leading the way to dignity and a progressive stance on end of life determination.
I'll leave it at that, I don't want to get bottled down tonight ...
Anon Anon
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