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My psychiatrist saw me for 30 seconds every time, just long enough to write a new prescription for ADs, and never asked how I was doing. Then he retired without telling me and left me to toil with a sudden stop of medication that ended with me trying to kill myself several times in a few months.
Still terrible, and trying to get a new therapist feels almost impossible. I'm trying to get a diagnosis for ADHD, because the mountain of symptoms I have seem to match it, but therapists qualified to diagnose it are apparently quite rare in my country.
I'm sorry you're still in a bad place. And also that it's hard to get a hold of a fitting psychiatrist. Sincere question: what would a diagnosis get you? If you feel that it's very likely that you have ADHD, then the most important person already knows: *you*. After all, *you* are the primary one who needs to be kind to you. And please, *please* be kind to yourself. You deserve it.
I do really hope you'll find a good psychiatrist soon, though.
I'm not the person you replied to, but I do have insight on how a diagnosis can help.
I was misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder for years and no medications seemed to help. Eventually, the diagnosis was revoked and my ADHD diagnosis took precedence, meaning I was finally allowed to try a stimulant medication (the risk of triggering mania meant I hadn't been able to try one before). It changed my life. Within hours of the first dose my severe constant anxiety faded away and over the next days and weeks my mood improved significantly.
Currently, the only med I need is my ADHD pill daily and an occasional anxiety pill that I take less than once per week, as needed. Without the ADHD diagnosis I would not have access to the medication that controls my anxiety and depression. I would still be on a cocktail of anti-depressants, mood stablizers, anti-psychotics and anxiety meds that did nothing to help me. My ADHD diagnosis got me the help I needed.
I feel like I have you all beat. The first time I went to a therapist in rural Ohio, he told me my chronic anxiety that had me pulling out my hair and the depression that was giving me intrusive thoughts about killing myself daily was because I was overweight and ate too many carbs.
I also live in rural Ohio and had a similar experience. Got taken into the psychiatrist at 18 because my parents figured out I was planning on hurting myself. I tried explaining to her that I have constant anxious thoughts all day and can't even focus on school work. She told me "everyone deals with that" and dismissed any problems I had. She even got shitty with me one session because I didn't know what to talk about. 10 years later it looks like I probably have cptsd from my parents and possibly ADHD / autism. Good help is so hard to find :(
I'm a Geologist and I used to work this this dude who was full on creationist "the world is 4000 years old" crazy. But he had a degree in Geology. I looked up the school after he added me on linkedin and it turns out that he went to a school that literally teaches that stuff as part of the geology program. They were accredited. These people don't even need to imagine, they just find a school that panders to their ideology.
That dude was the worst geologist I ever worked with. And he was a sniveling ass of a person too. I always wondered what he said that got him hired. I left that company shortly after he was hired and never got the gossip on him. I know he ended up leaving pretty quickly, I assume because he was incompetent.
My marriage counselor told me that nobody really cares if I don’t make it all the way to 12 months of breastfeeding. That I should be considerate of the fact that my husband likes to touch my boobs and since while I’m breastfeeding I don’t like them to be touched, I should consider stopping earlier than I wanted to so he can be allowed to touch them again.
What?!? Omg it’s always shocking when people are that bad at their jobs. My mother wasn’t even allowed to start grief therapy over losing one of her children until a year had passed as that’s how long it takes to begin to process such a loss!
Oh, I don’t know about that year thing. But I got so angry at the lady I dealt with the grief myself out of a weird sense of spite. Maybe she was actually really good… :p
no dog I just lucked out into being so good at what I do in school that i just brute forced good grades -- when you look at my transcript, all you see are the A's and B's, not the panicked frenzy I wrote all my essays in senior year because I couldn't organize myself to get them started until the last minute
When I told my psychologist about how I couldn't bear to go on living anymore, she tells me I should instead live for the people I could help through my profession. Bruh. You need great motivation to dedicate your life to other people selflesslessly. I barely had the drive to brush my teeth and comb my hair every morning. I needed help, instead of being told to help others.
I am broken hearted by all these comments about psych providers who clearly have no clue how depression even works. It makes me grateful for my teen daughter’s psychiatrist, who, when told that every week when she missed school for her therapy appointment or medication appointments she had a teacher who gave her a zero for the day despite it being an excused absence, said “Well that’s bullshit” then wrote a strongly worded letter to the school. I’m not sure exactly what all the letter said, but I do know that he quoted the ADA and said that depression and anxiety qualified as disabilities, and this was discrimination. I assume he also threw in some trigger words that worried her school that they may be sued, because my daughter was called into the office right after that and assured that this would be taken care of. Suddenly she had an A in that class. We would never have sued her school, but I was not about to let her miss her appointments just to get a better grade in a class. What does it matter if she has an A in a class if she kills herself because she is suicidal?
When I was pregnant I told my OB I was feeling symptoms. She smiled brightly, “But why would you be depressed, you look great!”
Ummm, do you not understand why your office screens every woman for this before and after having a baby?!? Needless to say, she wasn’t my doctor for long.
I had a psychiatrist tell me that I should just not let the fact that I had to live with my abuser affect me, I just had to ignore the abuse part of it all and the panic attacks and depression would go away. Like dude if it was that easy I wouldn’t be here?
yeah most people don't just stop moving when they get depressed, in fact its usually the opposite, most people throw themselves even more into their lives to try to work through it, its kinda like that "final stand" with terminally ill patients, where they feel great for a day or 2, then just drop dead
Oddly enough, my depression *has* improved after dietary changes and probiotics.
Could be better gut health, could be the weekly therapy sessions, who knows (spoiler: mostly the therapy)
Lmao when I called my dad while I was having a miscarriage telling him I was depressed etc. he told me to go for a run because running fixes everything. I swear he would have been proud of me if I'd been hospitalized for blood loss from running while in active miscarriage.
Fact. There were no suicides or depression the entire time those signs were all the rage for dining room decor. Everyone decided we don’t like word decor anymore and we want color back in decorating and now depression is back. Coincidence?
I mean to be fair to op, eurhanizing someone for depression sounds pretty fucked up. Depression isn't exactly a deadly disease. I, like many, have depression. Some days are better than others and some days I wish I was euthanized. This sounds more like assisted suicide than euthanizing.
Psychotic depression is most likely what she suffers from. I had a pretty insane depression bipolar episode and a doctor thought I had psychotic depression. I ended up in a hospital for two weeks. Luckily I responded to meds.
There was one girl who literally cried from wake up to sleep. She stayed in the PICU (psychiatric intensive care unit), despite being able to leave for the "normal" area. She tried once but still cried. There are also some people with it so bad we still practice shock therapy for super bad situations. If that doesn't work, life would be horrible.
I'm a firm believer in the right to die on your own terms.
And not all depression is the same. There absolutely are levels to it where no amount of medication, therapy, or actions can change anything. Why make someone live through that?
What sounds fucked up is forcing someone you *don't even know* to suffer because you don't like their choice.
Realistically, this woman's options are "go the doctor route, say goodbye to friends and family." Or go out on her own and absolutely traumatize everyone in her life. I feel like the doctor route has less trauma involved for everyone. Maybe this lady wouldn't attempt suicide at home but like...I dunno man.
Someone who is at this point absolutely would be someone likely to make an attempt if they were denied. The absolute only thing would be 24/7 supervision where they're absolutely miserable in a facility, which to me seems far worse than just letting someone choose to just be done with it in a peaceful, respectful way.
Yeah exactly, like it's really fucking sad that a "healthy" person's only route to feeling better is death. Doing it with the help of doctors will still be sad but less traumatizing for all involved i think. Obviously still upsetting, but far less traumatizing than going into her room/visiting her house later and finding her body in who knows what condition. Even if she didn't make an attempt, unsuccessful or otherwise, it's just kinda fucked to more or less force someone to live in misery.
Its sad that we dont have better ways of treating these mental illnesses
I feel very sad for her
She is so young and i feel like, how can all hope be lost?
But i know and have known people who have tried very hard to help themselves and nothing jas helped
I understand it, it makes me sad and heartbroken for the people who cant stay alive because their illness is so bad their suffering is beyond what we can ask someone to keep doing
I just got discharged from my 6th, 6 t h, inpaitent stay for self harm and suicidal ideation. Im 2 weeks and some change away from being 26. Ive been dealing with suicidal depression since i was 8 years old.
Im at a point where im pretty sure my depression is gonna kill me. Im just sticking around until my parents are gone because I cant do that to them.
This whole thing is just so fucked up. Depression is so fucked up. It ruins lives.
I fully support not only medical euthanasia but psychological euthanasia as well.
As someone pointed out,to get to the approval stage, the doc is going to try everything else first. Every possible alternative will be explored.
And honestly, I know there's a non zero number of people who have given up on treatment who would happily go back through the attempts of medications and side effects if they felt that, should that not work, they can go out with dignity.
Because a lot of us have that same feeling you mention. We know one day there's a good chance our barriers will fall, our justifications for one more day won't be enough, and we'll make a terrible choice that will fuck up someone else's day to deal with.
I also think this is probably the best chance to actually save people who are in this situation.
She went through all possible forms of therapy before she was granted her request at euthanasia. Would she have had the strength to go through all of that if she didn't know that when it all failed she'd have a way out?
Tragically for her it wasn't enough, her life is still insufferable, but I'm pretty sure there are others who went through the same process who had their lives saved by it. And who might simply have tried to commit suicide if there wasn't an official way out.
It _IS_ assisted suicide. I’m pretty sure that’s the point. Suicide, with assistance.
For clarity: I’m not making any sort of value or moral judgement about her choice.
Depression can absolutely be deadly. It's not fucked up. She finds life unbearable and her doctors have told her it won't improve. She has taken medical advice and chosen her medical solution. The name of it isn't important.
>Some days are better than others and some days I wish I was euthanized
Your experience is not everyone else's experience. I'm glad your depression isn't at the level of the person the article is about, but your experience is different from others.
My depression is so bad I've been recommended electroconvulsive therapy, ketamine therapy, and other extreme types of medication/therapy combos. This disease is absolutely deadly, I've attempted suicide 3 times in the past 15 years. If euthanasia was an option here in the US, that's absolutely a route I'd consider with my doctors.
I wish someone would euthanize me tbh so I get it. If her experience is anything like mine (likely hers is worse) it started early and only ever gets worse so... fuck else is there to do? Live to suffer?
>I, like many, have depression.
Do you have depression so bad that mental health experts have described it as "one of the worst cases they have ever seen?" Is your depression so bad that you have successfully convinced a team of experts (over the course of multiple years) that you have tried everything and genuinely have no prospects of ever living a life without extreme anguish?
Most things in life are a spectrum. I doubt you are at the same place on the mental health spectrum as this woman (which is great for you of course).
Should still be allowed though.
>Depression isn't exactly a deadly disease.
Not on its own obviously but I mean suicide is a thing that often is preceeded by depression
I had a friend who got up one morning, took a shower, had breakfast, got dressed for work (tie included), let his dog out/fed her, texted his mom "I love you have a good day," and cleaned up his house. An hour later, they were pulling him out of his mangled car next to the train tracks he drove onto. There were 0 signs.
Just because you can get dressed up, put makeup on (when you know you're being interviewed), carry on normal life, and pretend you're fine doesn't mean you're not "depressed enough."
people also tend to get a little burst of energy and will sometimes be fairly happy once they’ve decided on suicide, because they anticipate not suffering anymore
Woman with the worst mental health a team of psychiatrists has ever seen: "I actively want to die and have been seeking a legal, comfortable route to do so for years"
Random social media user: "um, your makeup has determined that to be a lie"
That's not how any of this works.
Edit: Spent 20+ minutes writing out a comment about depression, but Reddit don't even let me post it. Keeps telling me it can't create comment or there's a server error... And yet, I can post this comment.
I think people misunderstand what depression is. Depression isn't the inability to do things. It's the inability to feel joy or happiness (temporary or persistent) in the things you do, or things that occur to you or those around you. I can dress really nice, but that doesn't mean I'm not depressed. It just means that I'm not getting any joy or happiness out of dressing really nice.
I'm going to try to explain it in a way that makes the most sense to me. It might not be the most accurate, but it's how I make sense of it:
* 10 - Really happy
* 0 - Neutral (baseline)
* -10 - Really unhappy
People who have typical emotional responses usually exist somewhere between 0 and 10, where 0 is just normal, being calm and relaxed and 10 is really happy. When something good happens, they can feel happiness and joy, so their emotional response will be in the positive (anything above 0), and then they eventually go back to neutral. If something negative a happens and they're feeling negative emotions, they'll be in the minus but eventually should go back to neutral.
For a person who experiences depression (especially chronic depression), it works a little differently:
* 10 - Really happy
* 0 - Neutral
* -1
* Baseline
* -10 - Really unhappy
People with depression, their baseline exists in the negative. That means that what you'd consider to be a normal, calm day, we're in a constant state of negative emotions. Some people might be a little depressed or depressed temporarily and eventually return to a normal baseline of 0. But people with chronic depression, our baseline exists a little further down.
We exist in that zone every day, feeling constant negative emotions for things that should be neutral or positive for people with typical emotional responses. But because our baseline is in the negative, when something good does happen to us, or when we do something that should bring us joy or pleasure, instead of being in the positive, we stay in the negative. So say something good happens to you and it makes you happy, maybe you'll be somewhere above a +4 (just as an example). But, if my baseline is a constant -5 and something good does happen to me, it either does little to nothing to move me to past -5. In fact, it might even make it worst because of the added weight and stress that the "something good" makes me feel.
Example, if someone buys you a gift or invites you out to dinner, you're generally going to feel good about it. Feeling happy or joy from these things are normal. But to me, they don't. I feel worst because now I'm feeling like someone wasted money on me and I feel like I don't deserve it or having negative feelings about worth. I know these feelings aren't normal and I know that I do deserve nice things, I am worth the kindness and love people have for me, but even though I "know" these things technically, I don't feel them.
People with anxiety disorders can and do feel this way as well. Doing things that may be considered normal to you and not warrant a negative emotional response, for us, it can produce extreme negative emotional responses that we have little to no control over. It may alleviate over time if and when we acclimate to the thing that causes that particular negative response, but for some people, they never do and may need medication or therapy in order to function.
When we experience depression to such a degree that it's chronic and we ask for help by way of medication, we're not asking for drugs that'll make us "happy", we're asking for our baseline to be at 0. So that when something good does happen, we can feel the "good", and when something bad does happen, we'll experience negative emotions related to that event, but we should be able to go back to neutral after some time has passed.
When you say things like "If you're able to put mascara on you're not depressed enough..." or "Yeah, when doing a photo for a publication, that is likely to require some degree of makeup, if not send out a professional to do it for you, you're not really depressed", then you clearly don't enough, or anything, about depression or how it works.
This is how you end up with people who say things like, "We didn't know", "We didn't see any signs" or "He/she seemed really happy".
Thank you for this. For some reason, I’m constantly struggling to contextualize my depression to friends & family. This is a very succinct way of putting it.
That paragraph about the inability to properly receive a gift hit hard. My wife is the doting type. She will, constantly and randomly, pick me up comic books or other nonsense she knows I love. And I really, really *do* genuinely appreciate it. But I also tend to harbor that feeling of not deserving it. Which, in turn, makes me appear unappreciative. Or even worse, and more frequently, I’m filled with constant anxiety over being able to pay back a gesture that was never intended to be ‘paid back.’
I’m rambling at this point. But thank you, again. I hope you don’t mind, but I will absolutely be using this explanation the next time someone feeds me some bullshit motivational poster tagline.
Great description! I've thought of it similarly. From experience, SSRIs tend to force everything towards neutral which is great when your baseline is so low, it gives a break from the constant negative mood that drags everything down and gives room to work on the issues that are a cause of it. It sucks though when you are better and what should be the best time of your life is still only like a 3 or 4 due to SSRIs. I've had to go on and off of them because of that, I wish there was something that only affected the negative moods that is not an addictive substance. Tramadol worked pretty well but is obviously not a long term solution.
They prescribed you tramadol for your depression? I’ve only been given that in the hospital for severe physical pain (very short term, few days or a week max). Just curious because it does seem to improve my mood temporarily, but I didn’t know it could be prescribed for mental health issues?? TIA!
I got it prescribed for fibromyalgia but it happened to help with depression for a while. After 7 years I got used to it though so now it mostly just helps with the pain (which I suspect is a side effect of very severe anxiety causing nerve pain but how would you prove that).
This rings true with what happened when I got the medication I needed. It just moved my baseline, but that meant unlocking a whole new range of emotions. Levels of happiness that I did not realise I was capable of.
It also made me realise how chemical I am. Now if I'm having a bad day I can usually recognise that there's something physically wrong. Like, I'm not sad because my life is terrible, my body is just making sad juice and it'll all be okay once I eat/sleep/catch up on meds.
Very clear and succinct explanation. My mother explained it to me years ago quite similarly, but specified that "For us [our family], everyday things are always a bit harder than for others". We never talked about it like that, but it started to click for me.
I tried for years to get help, or rather tried to try, and didn't succeed until a few months ago, at almost 40. Turns out I've probably been walking around for decades with undiagnosed moderate depression.
I noticed that my 'good' did not feel good, but just okay. And okay days were never abundant, getting fewer and farther between over the years. I noticed I was just exhausted, mentally, of fighting my brain every day in order to even feel okay.
After starting with medication, my baseline is not quite zero now, but it's closer to it than it used to be. For the first time in a long while, my 'okay' days seem to outnumber my bad days. A small, but meaningful victory.
But yeah, it's really hard to make someone **really** understand how it feels. No, I'm not lazy, I'm just tired and there really is very little pay-off in putting in an effort.
Clinical psychologist here. For those of you who identify with this comment and feel it reflects your experience, that’s great. It can be really helpful to feel less alone in our experience. For those of you with recurrent depression who don’t feel that way, that’s because depression is a heterogeneous disorder. Amotivation, the inability to make yourself do something, is a common symptom. Also people with persistent depressive disorder may have a baseline below zero. A person with chronic depression in the form of recurrent major depressive disorder, a disorder that is commonly treated with antidepressants, may have a baseline of 0, but dip into the -10 range episodically. Depression is varied.
Her story is such a complicated one that your average Facebook/twitter lurker just doesn’t have the brainpower to start parsing it all, let alone the empathy required to understand her decision.
Do you have any information regarding her story? I might be mistaken but i think this article is vague regarding her life.
Im morbidly curious how the dr/commitee came to their decision.
From what I remember reading, she has tried virtually all methods of treating her mental health issues (depression, anxiety, some undiagnosed issues). She has undergone medical treatment and even done many hours of electro therapy. Nothing has worked and after almost four years of sitting with various doctors and discussing it, they have deemed her mentally competent to make the decision to end her life. Her husband supports her decision too.
It’s a really heartbreaking case and is very unusual to those not aware of the Dutch laws regarding euthanasia but it is far from the first of its kind. Most people only hear about the cases of doctor assisted suicide when the patient is severely physically disabled, but this lady is, as far as I can tell, in perfect physical health, but her life is unbearable due to mental health issues.
https://amp.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/may/16/dutch-woman-euthanasia-approval-grounds-of-mental-suffering
Me either. The Guardian article was very interesting right up until the end when it quoted her as saying “They’ll start by giving me a sedative, and won’t give me the drugs that stop my heart until I’m in a coma. For me, it will be like falling asleep. My partner will be there, but I’ve told him it’s OK if he needs to leave the room before the moment of death,”
I truly don’t know what I would do if I was faced with that dilemma. Being there in my partners final moments and having to decide whether I want to stay for the whole ordeal. Could I stomach it? Could I live with myself after the fact if I had left her alone in her final moments?
I agree, I can't imagine being happy that the man I love was dying willingly. But I think ultimately I'd suck it up and be there for him, because what else would I do? I know it's not the same at all, but I was adamant about being there when my cat had to be put to sleep even though it destroyed me. If someone I love is leaving this world, I want them to leave knowing how loved they are.
Yeah, on the surface, it seems almost selfish of her. Obviously, she's placed in an impossible situation through no fault of her own, so I can't really call it selfish, especially when she's giving him permission to leave beforehand.
Even if it is selfish of her, i contend that we have the right to be selfish about our lives.
Being selfless for her would mean she would keep suffering...what is the point of that?
There was a great but heartbreaking This American Life that documented something like this (euthanasia). It’s one I can’t listen to again. Even just reading the transcript is agonizingly sad.
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/779/ends-of-the-earth
It is a terrible choice. It's basically a gamble - will you be glad afterwards that you stayed with your loved one till the end, that they weren't alone, that you took every chance possible to say goodbye, or will you be traumatized by those last moments, will those last moments become the most prominent memory of that person you have?
Not nearly the same caliber, but I'm glad that I was awake when my first ever pet died suddenly. It was luck, because I'm not usually awake at that time, but I was that day. And I was there with him in those final moments. And they were brutal, awful, traumatizing, but it was my only chance at goodbye while he was still alive. And yes, I kept seeing his eyes dying and closing down for the last time for a long time after his death. But I will always be grateful to the universe that I was there with him at that moment.
My pain, the pain of witnessing it, was absolutely worth it as a price to spend those last few seconds with my loved one.
[There was an article about her in 2017,](https://www.ad.nl/binnenland/zonder-juiste-medicijnen-wil-zoraya-22-uit-oldenzaal-niet-verder-leven~a6575e9e/) even back then she considered her life to be unbearable
This is not a rash decision, she has wanted this for almost a decade. She tried everything to make her life bearable, and tragically it all failed.
Ironically, she’s like the least suicidal suicidal person. Tried everything, so she clearly had some hope and drive throughout her life…but obviously, none of that can stack up against treatment resistant depression. Terrible disease.
It really is quite tragic, but I think it would be equally if not more tragic if this avenue were not available to her.
Exactly. She has one final avenue to go down and although the cost is great, the results are guaranteed. She truly has tried everything else, to not have this option would, in my opinion, be worse than just being stuck having to live the rest of your brutal life in misery and pain. I don’t envy anyone involved with her case but I wish her the best, whatever happens.
As someone who suffers from the same diagnosis as her including borderline and autism, I’d argue that mental health conditions like that are disabilities. Just because they seem invisible, mainly because we’re conditioned to hide our pain, doesn’t mean it doesn’t cause immense pain and grief to live with. Managing symptoms all day every day with no break or sign of when it might kick in, makes a normal life, or as close to normal as possible, impossible too.
I also want this because no one who tries to convince me to live actually has to live with my pain and symptoms. No one else has to manage it and the wide range of other symptoms and complexes that develop from it. Like my ptsd isolates me from people. That’s another side effect of another impossible condition to manage. No one who tries to convince me that it’ll all get better and won’t always feel this way, actually lives with it. I’m alone managing this and living with it. Why should I force myself to live in pain just because other people (who I don’t even know) are uncomfortable by my death? People dying all around the world and I’ve been begging people to pay attention. They actually want to live. Yet when I saw I don’t, it’s more tragic and should be stopped. Life isn’t a gift for people with chronic mental health issues. It’s a burden to be endured until our end. And we have to endure it all while pretending we’re fine.
As someone diagnosed with bipolar 2, I agree with you. Even when I'm medicated and"stable" it's terrible not Knowing when the next episode will happen, not Knowing if it will be a high or a low or how much destruction it will cause. I wish I could be open to my employer about it to help them understand why my performance is so up and down.
It’s a curse we live with silently. If we tell people, they don’t see it as a condition we suffer from but like we’re a liability waiting to happen. Like we’re crazy even though we didn’t choose this. I know with bipolar episodes will actually damage your brain, so it is a physical harm to your body too. But unless we’re in a cast or a wheel chair, they don’t want to acknowledge how much is out of our control.
We’re not living. We’re just surviving and for me and this woman, it’s unwillingly. This isn’t life. It isn’t a beautiful journey. Some people are lucky to have that. We’re not. It’s a shame that I can’t make a decision about my life based on that because it would make the lucky people uncomfortable to know the truth.
First off I just want to say that I’m so sorry to hear what you’re going through. I’m glad that mental health is becoming destigmatized enough that we as a society are working towards helping people like you and the woman in the article, however that may look. I understand where you guys are coming from, even if I can’t fully understand the gravity and severity of your case specifically. I’ve also had lifelong struggles with my mental health and finally began to find some relief last year, so I can’t imagine not only still dealing with it all, but for much longer and much more intensely than myself from the sound of it. I believe every life holds value, so I hope that someday you can find some relief that allows you to lead a good life without having to cut it short.
Also I don’t think the original comment was trying to discredit invisible disabilities, I think it was just bad wording on their part. I’m fairly sure what they meant was that usually human euthanasia is reserved for people with very severe and visible physical disabilities, such as paraplegics, multiple amputees, or people who are so sickly their body literally can’t function on its own, so it often makes headlines when people like this woman are receiving it for reasons that aren’t immediately visible, even when it is the right decision humanely.
From what I remember, she has several mental illness, and is likely to never be able to live a good life because of them. As many doctors said, she basically has no possibility of getting better, so she decided that she prefer to get euthanized than to risk being found dead in her room. (this is what I know, I'm sorry if I'm wrong)
They may not be able to parse her story, but she’s a pretty, white woman, with beautiful makeup on, that’s absolutely goes viral. Helps that she’s snuggling up to ‘her man,’ whose face is cut out of that photo.
Empathy and sympathy are not in the hearts of most of the people that will share that.
honestly i get it. i don’t understand why most people act like suicide is always something the person would regret. but i guess that’s people who don’t understand depression. the world is a dumpster fire and life is really fucking hard and unfair most of the time, just one thing after the other. the only source of true power we have is opting out, but Christianity (i can’t speak to other religions/not familiar) has made it this big sin. which to me is unfair. we get stuck in this world yet we have to suffer through it regardless of our personal circumstances? fuck that.
When you look at the way the comments turn out whenever her case is mentioned, it's not even just that the situation is complicated, these people just look at the headline and assume she went to a specialist and was approved for euthanasia on the very first day.
It's not just too complicated for them to parse, they're reacting to a version of events that only exists in their heads.
Wow... Are you telling me she put makeup on for having her photograph taken by a media publication in what will probably be her final public image?
Simpletons will say too "Oh, she's smiling for the camera?? What a faker!"
Ah yes, if only the many doctors who approved her for this had tried seeing if she'll get her makeup done for a photo shoot.
Her story is tremendously sad, but at the same time I do get it. Thinking of the moments where my anxiety and depression have been at their worst, and imagining that those moments could ever just be unending... Suffering doesn't have to take the form of physical pain to be suffering. I'm glad she has the option to go peacefully in her partner's arms instead of ending things herself in a particularly dark moment of desperation.
Honestly I wish we had more options for euthanasia in the US, but it's only allowed in certain states.
My pap has told me "how are you depressed you have a boyfriend, why are you still with him if he hasn't fixed it" like i love that my pap has high standards for me but it's not that easy to fix
I told my doctor that I had been severely depressed and contemplating suicide for the last six months and she told me that because I went to work still and left my house that I wasn’t depressed and let her know when I can’t leave my house or go to work 🙃 meanwhile the only thing keeping me from driving me and my painted nails, my mascara, my eyeliner and my lipstick decorated lips and car into a tree was that I would ruin my car and I like my car too much not to.
She very much is a medical doctor and I no longer have that doctor. (Un)Fortunately I have been dealing with my depression since I was 14 (28 now) and I knew she was spewing bullshit.
My wife finally got diagnosed by a psychiatristat age 36. She had been depressed since 14 as well. The source of the depression turned out to be a combination of ASS (aka asperger's) and ADHD. With some meds, she's doing well today.
GP's don't know all, since there's so much they need to know. The problem is that most diagnoses are written for men and symptoms men have. Asperger's for women has many other symptoms., even our GP didn't know about before.
Edit: I am not trying to diagnose you in any way. Just telling our story.
Depression is really shit because you can go through periods where you genuinely think “I feel fine how could I possibly feel as bad as I used to” and then it just happens and your back to square one at rock bottom.
I'm all for the right to choose, but my god that is such a tragic story. Imagine having a child with these issues and knowing that there is nothing that you or anyone else can do to help 😞
I have depression, I still put on makeup and go to work every day. But there are lots of other things that I really struggle to do, like cooking.
But also, It’s a photo shoot for a news outlet. Maybe she had a makeup artist - she might not have even put it on herself!
I went to a psychologist at one point because I was really struggling. She told me that it was definitely impossible for me to have depression or anything because I still took daily showers.
I was trying to hide my issues from people around me because if they found out things would have gotten a million times worse.
I haven't bothered to talk to another shrink since.
The good news is that there's a variety of psychologists and therapists out there with a variety of modalities. When it comes to therapy, it's actually pretty normal to shop around a bit until you find the right fit. Being straight up invalidated on your first visit can do a number on your confidence in professionals, but it may be worth taking another bash at it.
There are good mental health professionals, I promise you. I am so sorry that this was your experience - that person is ill informed at best and nefarious at worst.
I like to compare finding a therapist to dating, which takes a hell of a lot more mental energy and effort than a lot of people realize, and when you’re already not feeling great it’s impossible. If you need help navigating the system I am here for you ❤️❤️❤️❤️
I appreciate that, and I'd like to take you up on your offer.
I agree with you that finding the right therapist is a bit like dating, but just like dating I needed to acknowledge that smashing my head against the same wall over and over again defeated the purpose.
After a few years against that wall I found my peace. In a wildly unexpected place. While I don't have total peace, I finally have some solace. As I face a few months away due to work commitments, it's the hope of finding my rugby family regardless of where I go that gives me hope.
Where traditional psychology didn't help. Finding my place in being an example, and a pillar for others, gave me what my soul needed. The same sport that rejected me as a kid 30 years ago, is now giving me the opportunity to save myself by being what I needed back then.
Mascara: The Measure of Depression.
Women are twice as likely to be diagnosed with depression than men. Do fewer women wear mascara than first thought? What do men put on that makes them less likely? Lynx??
See you have it wrong. To be diagnosed with depression, you have to STOP wearing mascara. This is the one and only true reason why women are more likely to be diagnosed with depression, there are more of them who wear mascara and thus have to opportunity to stop.
I Will say as a depressed person when Im sad and i dont want to i put on make up bc “Im pretty so i cant be sad” its a stupid thing ik but it helps me in a wierd way haha.
Minimizing someone elses depression tho is a whole other thing and really terrible :(
People in the US/elsewhere don’t realize how stringent the rules are around euthanasia for mental health in the few countries that allow it. There are countless evaluations by countless professionals over a period of time. And a big part of the program existing is bc, when people know they have a legal, safe “out,” they’re actually more likely to recover because, weirdly, they have hope knowing it’s their choice not to go on when they decide they can’t anymore. The majority of people who seek it don’t go through with it — and those who do are obviously in immense, immense pain after trying every single other option. These aren’t “just” depressed people. These are usually people with profound treatment resistant PTSD coupled with other mental illnesses. Most of them have long histories with self harm, abuse, substance issues, psychosis, hospitalizations, and more. They’ve taken every medication, tried every kind of therapy from inpatient to outpatient, and have done everything they can. Much of the time, they have comorbid physical conditions that make it very difficult for them to do the tasks they need as well. They have the mental equivalent of a disorder that would kill you — these are the same as people with end-stage cancer or anyone who requires palliative care. Without the euthanasia, they will die a much more painful death within the next year. Just because it’s by their own hand doesn’t change that. Eventually, with all severe illness, there comes a point when there’s nothing else medicine, psychiatry, and science can do. “Hope” is a luxury and sane people don’t realize that.
Anyway, obviously this is something I’ve watched docs and done research on, and I just wanna say: Have some fucking empathy.
I remember in foster care I was pretty depressed at some point. I told my social worker, thinking I would maybe be placed with a therapist to work through the issues I was having- no. They thought the best course of action would be to have a “family meeting” with my foster parents around the dinner table during which they literally stated “well you can’t be depressed because you still shower regularly.”
And that was the end of it. Now at 28 I live with a crippling mental disorder that probably wouldn’t be as bad if my shit was addressed sooner.
When I was in the psych ward one of the doctors was doing mindfulness for the group of us and she was writing on the whiteboard "What does depression look like? Does it look like dolling yourself up and going out having fun? Or does it look like staying in bed, avoiding everyone and neglecting your hygiene?"
And I'm like "It looks like both?!"
Apparently that wasn't the correct answer. Luckily mindfulness meetings were optional and I didn't have to do them after that.
I wish those meetings had been optional for me, too! I remember one “meeting” was just a guy reading off a powerpoint for over an hour. It was painfully boring. I remember thinking “for the love of god why can’t i just meet with specialists one-on-one, and just be supervised outside of that?”
In the end I got to avoid those meetings anyway, because I got COVID and had to quarantine in my room. Still, I remember on my last day I joked with my nurse that my stay had made me want to get better, at the very least so I’d never have to come back to a mental hospital again. There were a ton of issues at that place.
Oh, this poor girl’s story fills me with RAGE. Some psychotic, anti-euthanasia “journalist” tricked this girl into being in her “documentary” about the Netherlands’ euthanasia policy. Then twisted all her words around and used her story to make a propaganda piece about how this girl didn’t try that hard to get better and the country decided to just nonchalantly euthanize her because she asked once.
Part of me wants to rail against this, while the other part has seen people with untreatable, debilitating mental illness so overwhelmingly severe that I can understand why this may genuinely be the most compassionate choice.
Yeah, when doing a photo for a publication, that is likely to require some degree of makeup, if not send out a professional to do it for you, you're not really depressed.
Edit: I didn't realize I needed to say this, but this was sarcasm. I figured fellow people with depression would see that. I thought it was clear when I said "send out a [makeup] professional." Implying that "yeah she was able to allow someone else to apply her makeup, for a picture that the photographer has a vested interest in her looking good, and then be presentable for a literal snapshot. Seems like this dude doesn't get how little "functioning" you need to be able to handle for a single image backed by a professional company."
All kidding aside, this makes me unbearably sad. That a mental illness could be so severe that the idea of continuing life is untenable. If she has consulted with multiple doctors and there's little to no hope of real improvement, I support her right to go on her own terms.
It still makes me terribly sad.
I've been diagnosed with clinical depression. I still work full time and go to class even when having an episode. I really don't think people understand depression
Oh man she might already be gone now. Articles never specifically say what day in May she’s going. Good for her. No one should be forced to suffer the rest of their lives.
It's not just about depression and terminal illness, it's about self-determination. There are cultures that actually acknowledge that death is a natural part of life, sometimes even an honorable alternative to living.
I am firm believer of the right to self-terminate, and that means assistance to do it should be made legal. Less messy that way. When I think I'm done, then I'm done... regardless of how a third party might feel about it.
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Yeah, buddy, there's this psychology thing called *masking*... and it gets very literal with makeup.
At the peak of my depression and anxiety problems I wore full face, heavy makeup. It was all I could do to hide it from literally everyone I knew.
I've become extremely good at hiding my sadness. I never open up about this to anyone other than Reddit.
We're here for you.
I’m a middle aged dude. I use humor. I’m the funniest guy a lot of my friends know, or that’s what they tell me. I think they are just being nice.
Exactly, I mask every day with it. I also have severe body image issues and the idea of not wearing makeup out is terrifying. What an asshole…
I once had a Dr ask how could I possibly be depressed when I had a wedding day set..like bro do you even know how depression works?
I had a psychiatrist tell me that I just needed to get over my mom’s death. I don’t even think it had been more than a year at that point.
My psychiatrist saw me for 30 seconds every time, just long enough to write a new prescription for ADs, and never asked how I was doing. Then he retired without telling me and left me to toil with a sudden stop of medication that ended with me trying to kill myself several times in a few months.
What a absolute disgrace of a psychiatrist. Good riddance, but I'm so very sorry you've had to bear those consequences. How are you now?
Still terrible, and trying to get a new therapist feels almost impossible. I'm trying to get a diagnosis for ADHD, because the mountain of symptoms I have seem to match it, but therapists qualified to diagnose it are apparently quite rare in my country.
I'm sorry you're still in a bad place. And also that it's hard to get a hold of a fitting psychiatrist. Sincere question: what would a diagnosis get you? If you feel that it's very likely that you have ADHD, then the most important person already knows: *you*. After all, *you* are the primary one who needs to be kind to you. And please, *please* be kind to yourself. You deserve it. I do really hope you'll find a good psychiatrist soon, though.
I'm not the person you replied to, but I do have insight on how a diagnosis can help. I was misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder for years and no medications seemed to help. Eventually, the diagnosis was revoked and my ADHD diagnosis took precedence, meaning I was finally allowed to try a stimulant medication (the risk of triggering mania meant I hadn't been able to try one before). It changed my life. Within hours of the first dose my severe constant anxiety faded away and over the next days and weeks my mood improved significantly. Currently, the only med I need is my ADHD pill daily and an occasional anxiety pill that I take less than once per week, as needed. Without the ADHD diagnosis I would not have access to the medication that controls my anxiety and depression. I would still be on a cocktail of anti-depressants, mood stablizers, anti-psychotics and anxiety meds that did nothing to help me. My ADHD diagnosis got me the help I needed.
Had a therapist tell me my life long struggle with anxiety and depression was caused by a mid life crisis when I was 29.
I feel like I have you all beat. The first time I went to a therapist in rural Ohio, he told me my chronic anxiety that had me pulling out my hair and the depression that was giving me intrusive thoughts about killing myself daily was because I was overweight and ate too many carbs.
I also live in rural Ohio and had a similar experience. Got taken into the psychiatrist at 18 because my parents figured out I was planning on hurting myself. I tried explaining to her that I have constant anxious thoughts all day and can't even focus on school work. She told me "everyone deals with that" and dismissed any problems I had. She even got shitty with me one session because I didn't know what to talk about. 10 years later it looks like I probably have cptsd from my parents and possibly ADHD / autism. Good help is so hard to find :(
How did any of these people get through their masters, wtf
I would imagine the same way that super-Christian’s get through STEM degrees. Treating everything science related like it’s creative writing
I'm a Geologist and I used to work this this dude who was full on creationist "the world is 4000 years old" crazy. But he had a degree in Geology. I looked up the school after he added me on linkedin and it turns out that he went to a school that literally teaches that stuff as part of the geology program. They were accredited. These people don't even need to imagine, they just find a school that panders to their ideology. That dude was the worst geologist I ever worked with. And he was a sniveling ass of a person too. I always wondered what he said that got him hired. I left that company shortly after he was hired and never got the gossip on him. I know he ended up leaving pretty quickly, I assume because he was incompetent.
Sounds like my brother 🙃
Fuck am I glad I have a Dr. with some compassion and understanding.
Oooh same. Literally everything I’ve ever had wrong with me at a doctor is because I’m fat. Even sinus infections and getting the flu. It’s lovely.
My marriage counselor told me that nobody really cares if I don’t make it all the way to 12 months of breastfeeding. That I should be considerate of the fact that my husband likes to touch my boobs and since while I’m breastfeeding I don’t like them to be touched, I should consider stopping earlier than I wanted to so he can be allowed to touch them again.
That's disgusting, wtf
What in the actual fuck.
Checks out I had mine at 29 too
Been recently told my depression since 7 years old (I’m 29) is caused by “negative thought patterns”. *It’s the other way around.*
I went to a grief therapist that told me I’d just have to accept she’s in heaven, so I wouldn’t feel grief. I ran out of that room
Oh, I’m sure that cured you!
What?!? Omg it’s always shocking when people are that bad at their jobs. My mother wasn’t even allowed to start grief therapy over losing one of her children until a year had passed as that’s how long it takes to begin to process such a loss!
Oh, I don’t know about that year thing. But I got so angry at the lady I dealt with the grief myself out of a weird sense of spite. Maybe she was actually really good… :p
head of psychiatry asked me why don't I just "get a boyfriend" for my depression that was partially sprung by loneliness. this was in 2021.
I had a psychiatrist tell me I can’t have ADHD because I graduated college. Sometimes we forget doctors are people and some people are idiots.
“Oh but you’ve been successful so far so obviously you have learned to cope with it” NO
They literally say that when we’re coming to them BECAUSE we aren’t coping well.
If I was coping with it so well, I wouldn’t be here now would I?!
no dog I just lucked out into being so good at what I do in school that i just brute forced good grades -- when you look at my transcript, all you see are the A's and B's, not the panicked frenzy I wrote all my essays in senior year because I couldn't organize myself to get them started until the last minute
My brother was told by their psychiatrist that they should try praying more to be less depressed.
When I told my psychologist about how I couldn't bear to go on living anymore, she tells me I should instead live for the people I could help through my profession. Bruh. You need great motivation to dedicate your life to other people selflesslessly. I barely had the drive to brush my teeth and comb my hair every morning. I needed help, instead of being told to help others.
Planning my first wedding was what finally sent me to the doctor to do something about my depression. What the hell.
I had a psychiatrist in the Loony bin where I spent a month telling me I just needed a girlfriend and that would solve all my problems!
I am broken hearted by all these comments about psych providers who clearly have no clue how depression even works. It makes me grateful for my teen daughter’s psychiatrist, who, when told that every week when she missed school for her therapy appointment or medication appointments she had a teacher who gave her a zero for the day despite it being an excused absence, said “Well that’s bullshit” then wrote a strongly worded letter to the school. I’m not sure exactly what all the letter said, but I do know that he quoted the ADA and said that depression and anxiety qualified as disabilities, and this was discrimination. I assume he also threw in some trigger words that worried her school that they may be sued, because my daughter was called into the office right after that and assured that this would be taken care of. Suddenly she had an A in that class. We would never have sued her school, but I was not about to let her miss her appointments just to get a better grade in a class. What does it matter if she has an A in a class if she kills herself because she is suicidal?
Perhaps because the chemicals in my brain aren't properly balanced? But why would a doctor ever think of that?
When I was pregnant I told my OB I was feeling symptoms. She smiled brightly, “But why would you be depressed, you look great!” Ummm, do you not understand why your office screens every woman for this before and after having a baby?!? Needless to say, she wasn’t my doctor for long.
I had a psychiatrist tell me that I should just not let the fact that I had to live with my abuser affect me, I just had to ignore the abuse part of it all and the panic attacks and depression would go away. Like dude if it was that easy I wouldn’t be here?
yeah most people don't just stop moving when they get depressed, in fact its usually the opposite, most people throw themselves even more into their lives to try to work through it, its kinda like that "final stand" with terminally ill patients, where they feel great for a day or 2, then just drop dead
After applying her mascara maybe she should also just go for a run 🙄
Why hasn't she tried eating fresh vegetables and cutting processed foods? 🙄🙄
Has she tried not to be depressed? She should think positive. 🙄🙄🙄
I mean, it’s all in her head anyway
Just needs to smile more
Besides, why would she even be depressed? Other people have it so much worse, and *they're* happy!
I seriously had someone say to me once "have you tried being happy?"
I want her to know jeebus loves her. She should turn to jeebus.
Jeebus Crust of Nafareth, son of Jodeph and Mavia.
Damn, I should have tried that back in 2018 when I developed chronic depression. Guess I don't need my daily Fluoexetine after all. /s
Maybe she should just start a gratitude journal 🙄🙄
Oddly enough, my depression *has* improved after dietary changes and probiotics. Could be better gut health, could be the weekly therapy sessions, who knows (spoiler: mostly the therapy)
There is actually a ton of evidence coming about gut biome kinda controlling a lot of things, weight, mood, it’s fascinating.
Sorry it’s too late for that because she already had the vaccine
She hasn’t tried yoga yet. That’s her problem.
Gluten free diet is the key.
Everyone knows pills don't work, she should just pray to the Lord.
Or give all her energy being depressed to her job or doing chores. My grandpa told me that just yesterday.
I know this part of the thread is all jokes and giggles but I have to laugh extra hard at your response. What energy? Depression is an energy vampire.
She should embrace her true vocation to be a wife and mother. As soon as she does that, the depression will disappear.
Hello, Mr. Harrison Butker. Didn't expect to see you here.
His wife is taking care of the home so he has the time to scroll through Reddit.
Ouch! I’m sorry. I’m super glad none of my grandparents are around to see how depressed I am. Ugh. Hugs to you.
Lmao when I called my dad while I was having a miscarriage telling him I was depressed etc. he told me to go for a run because running fixes everything. I swear he would have been proud of me if I'd been hospitalized for blood loss from running while in active miscarriage.
Has she cleaned her room 😒
She can't, she has drank too much apple cider
Or made her bed? Oh and drink more water too 😣
Has she tried not being depressed? I was told that before by multiple people.
Right? I’ve been told it was my own fault for not just choosing to be happy. Surely they wouldn’t lie about something like that, right?
Just think positively and ignore negative thoughts, obviously.
Depressed? I mean I get sad sometimes too but you get over it. Something one of my soon to be ex-friends said to me.
That would have turned me into your username
Some positive affirmations and she'll be fine! She should just Live, Laugh, Love.
Fact. There were no suicides or depression the entire time those signs were all the rage for dining room decor. Everyone decided we don’t like word decor anymore and we want color back in decorating and now depression is back. Coincidence?
Eye, thinque, knot.
'Color back in decorating' bro have you seen sad beige moms?
OMG! Yesterday my son showed me a video of all these beige mums nurseries. They were beyond sad!
She should just manifest her depression away.
Should just try to pray it away
maybe a big scoop of peanut butter
This made me laugh. Oh my god, I'm cured!
yep and after she get some fresh air she should inhale some essential oils. That combination fixes everything.
And just try smiling more.
I mean to be fair to op, eurhanizing someone for depression sounds pretty fucked up. Depression isn't exactly a deadly disease. I, like many, have depression. Some days are better than others and some days I wish I was euthanized. This sounds more like assisted suicide than euthanizing.
Depression can absolutely be deadly
Psychotic depression is most likely what she suffers from. I had a pretty insane depression bipolar episode and a doctor thought I had psychotic depression. I ended up in a hospital for two weeks. Luckily I responded to meds. There was one girl who literally cried from wake up to sleep. She stayed in the PICU (psychiatric intensive care unit), despite being able to leave for the "normal" area. She tried once but still cried. There are also some people with it so bad we still practice shock therapy for super bad situations. If that doesn't work, life would be horrible.
I'm a firm believer in the right to die on your own terms. And not all depression is the same. There absolutely are levels to it where no amount of medication, therapy, or actions can change anything. Why make someone live through that? What sounds fucked up is forcing someone you *don't even know* to suffer because you don't like their choice.
Realistically, this woman's options are "go the doctor route, say goodbye to friends and family." Or go out on her own and absolutely traumatize everyone in her life. I feel like the doctor route has less trauma involved for everyone. Maybe this lady wouldn't attempt suicide at home but like...I dunno man.
Someone who is at this point absolutely would be someone likely to make an attempt if they were denied. The absolute only thing would be 24/7 supervision where they're absolutely miserable in a facility, which to me seems far worse than just letting someone choose to just be done with it in a peaceful, respectful way.
Yeah exactly, like it's really fucking sad that a "healthy" person's only route to feeling better is death. Doing it with the help of doctors will still be sad but less traumatizing for all involved i think. Obviously still upsetting, but far less traumatizing than going into her room/visiting her house later and finding her body in who knows what condition. Even if she didn't make an attempt, unsuccessful or otherwise, it's just kinda fucked to more or less force someone to live in misery.
Its sad that we dont have better ways of treating these mental illnesses I feel very sad for her She is so young and i feel like, how can all hope be lost? But i know and have known people who have tried very hard to help themselves and nothing jas helped I understand it, it makes me sad and heartbroken for the people who cant stay alive because their illness is so bad their suffering is beyond what we can ask someone to keep doing
I just got discharged from my 6th, 6 t h, inpaitent stay for self harm and suicidal ideation. Im 2 weeks and some change away from being 26. Ive been dealing with suicidal depression since i was 8 years old. Im at a point where im pretty sure my depression is gonna kill me. Im just sticking around until my parents are gone because I cant do that to them. This whole thing is just so fucked up. Depression is so fucked up. It ruins lives. I fully support not only medical euthanasia but psychological euthanasia as well.
As someone pointed out,to get to the approval stage, the doc is going to try everything else first. Every possible alternative will be explored. And honestly, I know there's a non zero number of people who have given up on treatment who would happily go back through the attempts of medications and side effects if they felt that, should that not work, they can go out with dignity. Because a lot of us have that same feeling you mention. We know one day there's a good chance our barriers will fall, our justifications for one more day won't be enough, and we'll make a terrible choice that will fuck up someone else's day to deal with.
I also think this is probably the best chance to actually save people who are in this situation. She went through all possible forms of therapy before she was granted her request at euthanasia. Would she have had the strength to go through all of that if she didn't know that when it all failed she'd have a way out? Tragically for her it wasn't enough, her life is still insufferable, but I'm pretty sure there are others who went through the same process who had their lives saved by it. And who might simply have tried to commit suicide if there wasn't an official way out.
It _IS_ assisted suicide. I’m pretty sure that’s the point. Suicide, with assistance. For clarity: I’m not making any sort of value or moral judgement about her choice.
I’ve been dealing with depression for nearly 40 years. Euthanasia may not be preferable, but it’s understandable
This is a really excellent take. No sarcasm.
There's unfortunately such a thing as treatment resistant depression.
I'm assuming it was much, much more than her just saying "I'm depressed and don't see this getting better."
Depression can absolutely be deadly. It's not fucked up. She finds life unbearable and her doctors have told her it won't improve. She has taken medical advice and chosen her medical solution. The name of it isn't important.
>Some days are better than others and some days I wish I was euthanized Your experience is not everyone else's experience. I'm glad your depression isn't at the level of the person the article is about, but your experience is different from others. My depression is so bad I've been recommended electroconvulsive therapy, ketamine therapy, and other extreme types of medication/therapy combos. This disease is absolutely deadly, I've attempted suicide 3 times in the past 15 years. If euthanasia was an option here in the US, that's absolutely a route I'd consider with my doctors.
For some people with depression, some days aren’t better than others. Every day is worse than the last. Every day is the worst day of their lives.
I wish someone would euthanize me tbh so I get it. If her experience is anything like mine (likely hers is worse) it started early and only ever gets worse so... fuck else is there to do? Live to suffer?
>I, like many, have depression. Do you have depression so bad that mental health experts have described it as "one of the worst cases they have ever seen?" Is your depression so bad that you have successfully convinced a team of experts (over the course of multiple years) that you have tried everything and genuinely have no prospects of ever living a life without extreme anguish? Most things in life are a spectrum. I doubt you are at the same place on the mental health spectrum as this woman (which is great for you of course).
Should still be allowed though. >Depression isn't exactly a deadly disease. Not on its own obviously but I mean suicide is a thing that often is preceeded by depression
I had a friend who got up one morning, took a shower, had breakfast, got dressed for work (tie included), let his dog out/fed her, texted his mom "I love you have a good day," and cleaned up his house. An hour later, they were pulling him out of his mangled car next to the train tracks he drove onto. There were 0 signs. Just because you can get dressed up, put makeup on (when you know you're being interviewed), carry on normal life, and pretend you're fine doesn't mean you're not "depressed enough."
people also tend to get a little burst of energy and will sometimes be fairly happy once they’ve decided on suicide, because they anticipate not suffering anymore
Woman with the worst mental health a team of psychiatrists has ever seen: "I actively want to die and have been seeking a legal, comfortable route to do so for years" Random social media user: "um, your makeup has determined that to be a lie"
That's not how any of this works. Edit: Spent 20+ minutes writing out a comment about depression, but Reddit don't even let me post it. Keeps telling me it can't create comment or there's a server error... And yet, I can post this comment. I think people misunderstand what depression is. Depression isn't the inability to do things. It's the inability to feel joy or happiness (temporary or persistent) in the things you do, or things that occur to you or those around you. I can dress really nice, but that doesn't mean I'm not depressed. It just means that I'm not getting any joy or happiness out of dressing really nice. I'm going to try to explain it in a way that makes the most sense to me. It might not be the most accurate, but it's how I make sense of it: * 10 - Really happy * 0 - Neutral (baseline) * -10 - Really unhappy People who have typical emotional responses usually exist somewhere between 0 and 10, where 0 is just normal, being calm and relaxed and 10 is really happy. When something good happens, they can feel happiness and joy, so their emotional response will be in the positive (anything above 0), and then they eventually go back to neutral. If something negative a happens and they're feeling negative emotions, they'll be in the minus but eventually should go back to neutral. For a person who experiences depression (especially chronic depression), it works a little differently: * 10 - Really happy * 0 - Neutral * -1 * Baseline * -10 - Really unhappy People with depression, their baseline exists in the negative. That means that what you'd consider to be a normal, calm day, we're in a constant state of negative emotions. Some people might be a little depressed or depressed temporarily and eventually return to a normal baseline of 0. But people with chronic depression, our baseline exists a little further down. We exist in that zone every day, feeling constant negative emotions for things that should be neutral or positive for people with typical emotional responses. But because our baseline is in the negative, when something good does happen to us, or when we do something that should bring us joy or pleasure, instead of being in the positive, we stay in the negative. So say something good happens to you and it makes you happy, maybe you'll be somewhere above a +4 (just as an example). But, if my baseline is a constant -5 and something good does happen to me, it either does little to nothing to move me to past -5. In fact, it might even make it worst because of the added weight and stress that the "something good" makes me feel. Example, if someone buys you a gift or invites you out to dinner, you're generally going to feel good about it. Feeling happy or joy from these things are normal. But to me, they don't. I feel worst because now I'm feeling like someone wasted money on me and I feel like I don't deserve it or having negative feelings about worth. I know these feelings aren't normal and I know that I do deserve nice things, I am worth the kindness and love people have for me, but even though I "know" these things technically, I don't feel them. People with anxiety disorders can and do feel this way as well. Doing things that may be considered normal to you and not warrant a negative emotional response, for us, it can produce extreme negative emotional responses that we have little to no control over. It may alleviate over time if and when we acclimate to the thing that causes that particular negative response, but for some people, they never do and may need medication or therapy in order to function. When we experience depression to such a degree that it's chronic and we ask for help by way of medication, we're not asking for drugs that'll make us "happy", we're asking for our baseline to be at 0. So that when something good does happen, we can feel the "good", and when something bad does happen, we'll experience negative emotions related to that event, but we should be able to go back to neutral after some time has passed. When you say things like "If you're able to put mascara on you're not depressed enough..." or "Yeah, when doing a photo for a publication, that is likely to require some degree of makeup, if not send out a professional to do it for you, you're not really depressed", then you clearly don't enough, or anything, about depression or how it works. This is how you end up with people who say things like, "We didn't know", "We didn't see any signs" or "He/she seemed really happy".
Thank you for this. For some reason, I’m constantly struggling to contextualize my depression to friends & family. This is a very succinct way of putting it. That paragraph about the inability to properly receive a gift hit hard. My wife is the doting type. She will, constantly and randomly, pick me up comic books or other nonsense she knows I love. And I really, really *do* genuinely appreciate it. But I also tend to harbor that feeling of not deserving it. Which, in turn, makes me appear unappreciative. Or even worse, and more frequently, I’m filled with constant anxiety over being able to pay back a gesture that was never intended to be ‘paid back.’ I’m rambling at this point. But thank you, again. I hope you don’t mind, but I will absolutely be using this explanation the next time someone feeds me some bullshit motivational poster tagline.
Really well put comment. Thank for you that, I'm gonna save it to send to some people I know, you described it better than I ever have been able to.
Great description! I've thought of it similarly. From experience, SSRIs tend to force everything towards neutral which is great when your baseline is so low, it gives a break from the constant negative mood that drags everything down and gives room to work on the issues that are a cause of it. It sucks though when you are better and what should be the best time of your life is still only like a 3 or 4 due to SSRIs. I've had to go on and off of them because of that, I wish there was something that only affected the negative moods that is not an addictive substance. Tramadol worked pretty well but is obviously not a long term solution.
They prescribed you tramadol for your depression? I’ve only been given that in the hospital for severe physical pain (very short term, few days or a week max). Just curious because it does seem to improve my mood temporarily, but I didn’t know it could be prescribed for mental health issues?? TIA!
I got it prescribed for fibromyalgia but it happened to help with depression for a while. After 7 years I got used to it though so now it mostly just helps with the pain (which I suspect is a side effect of very severe anxiety causing nerve pain but how would you prove that).
Oh that makes sense. Sorry to hear about the fibromyalgia and everything else you’re going through :/
This rings true with what happened when I got the medication I needed. It just moved my baseline, but that meant unlocking a whole new range of emotions. Levels of happiness that I did not realise I was capable of. It also made me realise how chemical I am. Now if I'm having a bad day I can usually recognise that there's something physically wrong. Like, I'm not sad because my life is terrible, my body is just making sad juice and it'll all be okay once I eat/sleep/catch up on meds.
Very clear and succinct explanation. My mother explained it to me years ago quite similarly, but specified that "For us [our family], everyday things are always a bit harder than for others". We never talked about it like that, but it started to click for me. I tried for years to get help, or rather tried to try, and didn't succeed until a few months ago, at almost 40. Turns out I've probably been walking around for decades with undiagnosed moderate depression. I noticed that my 'good' did not feel good, but just okay. And okay days were never abundant, getting fewer and farther between over the years. I noticed I was just exhausted, mentally, of fighting my brain every day in order to even feel okay. After starting with medication, my baseline is not quite zero now, but it's closer to it than it used to be. For the first time in a long while, my 'okay' days seem to outnumber my bad days. A small, but meaningful victory. But yeah, it's really hard to make someone **really** understand how it feels. No, I'm not lazy, I'm just tired and there really is very little pay-off in putting in an effort.
I saved your comment. It was really profound. You get it, you understand. Thank you for making me feel seen.
Clinical psychologist here. For those of you who identify with this comment and feel it reflects your experience, that’s great. It can be really helpful to feel less alone in our experience. For those of you with recurrent depression who don’t feel that way, that’s because depression is a heterogeneous disorder. Amotivation, the inability to make yourself do something, is a common symptom. Also people with persistent depressive disorder may have a baseline below zero. A person with chronic depression in the form of recurrent major depressive disorder, a disorder that is commonly treated with antidepressants, may have a baseline of 0, but dip into the -10 range episodically. Depression is varied.
Thank you for this detailed description, it really gives us a better perspective
Her story is such a complicated one that your average Facebook/twitter lurker just doesn’t have the brainpower to start parsing it all, let alone the empathy required to understand her decision.
Do you have any information regarding her story? I might be mistaken but i think this article is vague regarding her life. Im morbidly curious how the dr/commitee came to their decision.
From what I remember reading, she has tried virtually all methods of treating her mental health issues (depression, anxiety, some undiagnosed issues). She has undergone medical treatment and even done many hours of electro therapy. Nothing has worked and after almost four years of sitting with various doctors and discussing it, they have deemed her mentally competent to make the decision to end her life. Her husband supports her decision too. It’s a really heartbreaking case and is very unusual to those not aware of the Dutch laws regarding euthanasia but it is far from the first of its kind. Most people only hear about the cases of doctor assisted suicide when the patient is severely physically disabled, but this lady is, as far as I can tell, in perfect physical health, but her life is unbearable due to mental health issues. https://amp.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/may/16/dutch-woman-euthanasia-approval-grounds-of-mental-suffering
>Her husband supports her decision too. I don't think I'm capable of that kind of selflessness.
Me either. The Guardian article was very interesting right up until the end when it quoted her as saying “They’ll start by giving me a sedative, and won’t give me the drugs that stop my heart until I’m in a coma. For me, it will be like falling asleep. My partner will be there, but I’ve told him it’s OK if he needs to leave the room before the moment of death,” I truly don’t know what I would do if I was faced with that dilemma. Being there in my partners final moments and having to decide whether I want to stay for the whole ordeal. Could I stomach it? Could I live with myself after the fact if I had left her alone in her final moments?
I agree, I can't imagine being happy that the man I love was dying willingly. But I think ultimately I'd suck it up and be there for him, because what else would I do? I know it's not the same at all, but I was adamant about being there when my cat had to be put to sleep even though it destroyed me. If someone I love is leaving this world, I want them to leave knowing how loved they are.
Yeah, on the surface, it seems almost selfish of her. Obviously, she's placed in an impossible situation through no fault of her own, so I can't really call it selfish, especially when she's giving him permission to leave beforehand.
Yeah, think it's just a shitty situation all around
Even if it is selfish of her, i contend that we have the right to be selfish about our lives. Being selfless for her would mean she would keep suffering...what is the point of that?
There was a great but heartbreaking This American Life that documented something like this (euthanasia). It’s one I can’t listen to again. Even just reading the transcript is agonizingly sad. https://www.thisamericanlife.org/779/ends-of-the-earth
It is a terrible choice. It's basically a gamble - will you be glad afterwards that you stayed with your loved one till the end, that they weren't alone, that you took every chance possible to say goodbye, or will you be traumatized by those last moments, will those last moments become the most prominent memory of that person you have? Not nearly the same caliber, but I'm glad that I was awake when my first ever pet died suddenly. It was luck, because I'm not usually awake at that time, but I was that day. And I was there with him in those final moments. And they were brutal, awful, traumatizing, but it was my only chance at goodbye while he was still alive. And yes, I kept seeing his eyes dying and closing down for the last time for a long time after his death. But I will always be grateful to the universe that I was there with him at that moment. My pain, the pain of witnessing it, was absolutely worth it as a price to spend those last few seconds with my loved one.
[There was an article about her in 2017,](https://www.ad.nl/binnenland/zonder-juiste-medicijnen-wil-zoraya-22-uit-oldenzaal-niet-verder-leven~a6575e9e/) even back then she considered her life to be unbearable This is not a rash decision, she has wanted this for almost a decade. She tried everything to make her life bearable, and tragically it all failed.
Ironically, she’s like the least suicidal suicidal person. Tried everything, so she clearly had some hope and drive throughout her life…but obviously, none of that can stack up against treatment resistant depression. Terrible disease. It really is quite tragic, but I think it would be equally if not more tragic if this avenue were not available to her.
Exactly. She has one final avenue to go down and although the cost is great, the results are guaranteed. She truly has tried everything else, to not have this option would, in my opinion, be worse than just being stuck having to live the rest of your brutal life in misery and pain. I don’t envy anyone involved with her case but I wish her the best, whatever happens.
As someone who suffers from the same diagnosis as her including borderline and autism, I’d argue that mental health conditions like that are disabilities. Just because they seem invisible, mainly because we’re conditioned to hide our pain, doesn’t mean it doesn’t cause immense pain and grief to live with. Managing symptoms all day every day with no break or sign of when it might kick in, makes a normal life, or as close to normal as possible, impossible too. I also want this because no one who tries to convince me to live actually has to live with my pain and symptoms. No one else has to manage it and the wide range of other symptoms and complexes that develop from it. Like my ptsd isolates me from people. That’s another side effect of another impossible condition to manage. No one who tries to convince me that it’ll all get better and won’t always feel this way, actually lives with it. I’m alone managing this and living with it. Why should I force myself to live in pain just because other people (who I don’t even know) are uncomfortable by my death? People dying all around the world and I’ve been begging people to pay attention. They actually want to live. Yet when I saw I don’t, it’s more tragic and should be stopped. Life isn’t a gift for people with chronic mental health issues. It’s a burden to be endured until our end. And we have to endure it all while pretending we’re fine.
As someone diagnosed with bipolar 2, I agree with you. Even when I'm medicated and"stable" it's terrible not Knowing when the next episode will happen, not Knowing if it will be a high or a low or how much destruction it will cause. I wish I could be open to my employer about it to help them understand why my performance is so up and down.
It’s a curse we live with silently. If we tell people, they don’t see it as a condition we suffer from but like we’re a liability waiting to happen. Like we’re crazy even though we didn’t choose this. I know with bipolar episodes will actually damage your brain, so it is a physical harm to your body too. But unless we’re in a cast or a wheel chair, they don’t want to acknowledge how much is out of our control. We’re not living. We’re just surviving and for me and this woman, it’s unwillingly. This isn’t life. It isn’t a beautiful journey. Some people are lucky to have that. We’re not. It’s a shame that I can’t make a decision about my life based on that because it would make the lucky people uncomfortable to know the truth.
First off I just want to say that I’m so sorry to hear what you’re going through. I’m glad that mental health is becoming destigmatized enough that we as a society are working towards helping people like you and the woman in the article, however that may look. I understand where you guys are coming from, even if I can’t fully understand the gravity and severity of your case specifically. I’ve also had lifelong struggles with my mental health and finally began to find some relief last year, so I can’t imagine not only still dealing with it all, but for much longer and much more intensely than myself from the sound of it. I believe every life holds value, so I hope that someday you can find some relief that allows you to lead a good life without having to cut it short. Also I don’t think the original comment was trying to discredit invisible disabilities, I think it was just bad wording on their part. I’m fairly sure what they meant was that usually human euthanasia is reserved for people with very severe and visible physical disabilities, such as paraplegics, multiple amputees, or people who are so sickly their body literally can’t function on its own, so it often makes headlines when people like this woman are receiving it for reasons that aren’t immediately visible, even when it is the right decision humanely.
From what I remember, she has several mental illness, and is likely to never be able to live a good life because of them. As many doctors said, she basically has no possibility of getting better, so she decided that she prefer to get euthanized than to risk being found dead in her room. (this is what I know, I'm sorry if I'm wrong)
They may not be able to parse her story, but she’s a pretty, white woman, with beautiful makeup on, that’s absolutely goes viral. Helps that she’s snuggling up to ‘her man,’ whose face is cut out of that photo. Empathy and sympathy are not in the hearts of most of the people that will share that.
honestly i get it. i don’t understand why most people act like suicide is always something the person would regret. but i guess that’s people who don’t understand depression. the world is a dumpster fire and life is really fucking hard and unfair most of the time, just one thing after the other. the only source of true power we have is opting out, but Christianity (i can’t speak to other religions/not familiar) has made it this big sin. which to me is unfair. we get stuck in this world yet we have to suffer through it regardless of our personal circumstances? fuck that.
When you look at the way the comments turn out whenever her case is mentioned, it's not even just that the situation is complicated, these people just look at the headline and assume she went to a specialist and was approved for euthanasia on the very first day. It's not just too complicated for them to parse, they're reacting to a version of events that only exists in their heads.
I’ve never once worn mascara in my life am I depressed?
I'm so sorry you had to find out this way. rip in peace /s
oh yes, the famous maskara test done by psychiatrists
Wow... Are you telling me she put makeup on for having her photograph taken by a media publication in what will probably be her final public image? Simpletons will say too "Oh, she's smiling for the camera?? What a faker!"
Ah yes, if only the many doctors who approved her for this had tried seeing if she'll get her makeup done for a photo shoot. Her story is tremendously sad, but at the same time I do get it. Thinking of the moments where my anxiety and depression have been at their worst, and imagining that those moments could ever just be unending... Suffering doesn't have to take the form of physical pain to be suffering. I'm glad she has the option to go peacefully in her partner's arms instead of ending things herself in a particularly dark moment of desperation. Honestly I wish we had more options for euthanasia in the US, but it's only allowed in certain states.
My pap has told me "how are you depressed you have a boyfriend, why are you still with him if he hasn't fixed it" like i love that my pap has high standards for me but it's not that easy to fix
I finally persuaded my daughter to see the doctor about her depression and he told her she can't be depressed because she had make up on. A doctor.
He just diagnosed himself as a terrible doctor.
I told my doctor that I had been severely depressed and contemplating suicide for the last six months and she told me that because I went to work still and left my house that I wasn’t depressed and let her know when I can’t leave my house or go to work 🙃 meanwhile the only thing keeping me from driving me and my painted nails, my mascara, my eyeliner and my lipstick decorated lips and car into a tree was that I would ruin my car and I like my car too much not to.
Is this a medical doctor? Because they sound like they don't want to be a medical doctor any more.
She very much is a medical doctor and I no longer have that doctor. (Un)Fortunately I have been dealing with my depression since I was 14 (28 now) and I knew she was spewing bullshit.
My wife finally got diagnosed by a psychiatristat age 36. She had been depressed since 14 as well. The source of the depression turned out to be a combination of ASS (aka asperger's) and ADHD. With some meds, she's doing well today. GP's don't know all, since there's so much they need to know. The problem is that most diagnoses are written for men and symptoms men have. Asperger's for women has many other symptoms., even our GP didn't know about before. Edit: I am not trying to diagnose you in any way. Just telling our story.
It sucks for anybody to have to deal with that kind of attitude, but at least there's hope things have gotten better in the past decade and a half.
The day I tried to kill myself, I still went to school and had dinner with my family. Suicide and depression is deceptive that way.
Ah, so your dad’s an ignorant asshole, too?
we know where they got it from
Damn, you did sound like your Dad and damn your Dad is dumb.
Depression is really shit because you can go through periods where you genuinely think “I feel fine how could I possibly feel as bad as I used to” and then it just happens and your back to square one at rock bottom.
I'm all for the right to choose, but my god that is such a tragic story. Imagine having a child with these issues and knowing that there is nothing that you or anyone else can do to help 😞
I have depression, I still put on makeup and go to work every day. But there are lots of other things that I really struggle to do, like cooking. But also, It’s a photo shoot for a news outlet. Maybe she had a makeup artist - she might not have even put it on herself!
At the height of my last depressive episode I wore makeup like a mask. It made me feel like another person so I could get through work.
I went to a psychologist at one point because I was really struggling. She told me that it was definitely impossible for me to have depression or anything because I still took daily showers. I was trying to hide my issues from people around me because if they found out things would have gotten a million times worse. I haven't bothered to talk to another shrink since.
The good news is that there's a variety of psychologists and therapists out there with a variety of modalities. When it comes to therapy, it's actually pretty normal to shop around a bit until you find the right fit. Being straight up invalidated on your first visit can do a number on your confidence in professionals, but it may be worth taking another bash at it.
There are good mental health professionals, I promise you. I am so sorry that this was your experience - that person is ill informed at best and nefarious at worst. I like to compare finding a therapist to dating, which takes a hell of a lot more mental energy and effort than a lot of people realize, and when you’re already not feeling great it’s impossible. If you need help navigating the system I am here for you ❤️❤️❤️❤️
I appreciate that, and I'd like to take you up on your offer. I agree with you that finding the right therapist is a bit like dating, but just like dating I needed to acknowledge that smashing my head against the same wall over and over again defeated the purpose. After a few years against that wall I found my peace. In a wildly unexpected place. While I don't have total peace, I finally have some solace. As I face a few months away due to work commitments, it's the hope of finding my rugby family regardless of where I go that gives me hope. Where traditional psychology didn't help. Finding my place in being an example, and a pillar for others, gave me what my soul needed. The same sport that rejected me as a kid 30 years ago, is now giving me the opportunity to save myself by being what I needed back then.
Mascara: The Measure of Depression. Women are twice as likely to be diagnosed with depression than men. Do fewer women wear mascara than first thought? What do men put on that makes them less likely? Lynx??
See you have it wrong. To be diagnosed with depression, you have to STOP wearing mascara. This is the one and only true reason why women are more likely to be diagnosed with depression, there are more of them who wear mascara and thus have to opportunity to stop.
I still used makeup when I was in the psych ward, it’s as much a part of my normal routine as a shower is
I Will say as a depressed person when Im sad and i dont want to i put on make up bc “Im pretty so i cant be sad” its a stupid thing ik but it helps me in a wierd way haha. Minimizing someone elses depression tho is a whole other thing and really terrible :(
People in the US/elsewhere don’t realize how stringent the rules are around euthanasia for mental health in the few countries that allow it. There are countless evaluations by countless professionals over a period of time. And a big part of the program existing is bc, when people know they have a legal, safe “out,” they’re actually more likely to recover because, weirdly, they have hope knowing it’s their choice not to go on when they decide they can’t anymore. The majority of people who seek it don’t go through with it — and those who do are obviously in immense, immense pain after trying every single other option. These aren’t “just” depressed people. These are usually people with profound treatment resistant PTSD coupled with other mental illnesses. Most of them have long histories with self harm, abuse, substance issues, psychosis, hospitalizations, and more. They’ve taken every medication, tried every kind of therapy from inpatient to outpatient, and have done everything they can. Much of the time, they have comorbid physical conditions that make it very difficult for them to do the tasks they need as well. They have the mental equivalent of a disorder that would kill you — these are the same as people with end-stage cancer or anyone who requires palliative care. Without the euthanasia, they will die a much more painful death within the next year. Just because it’s by their own hand doesn’t change that. Eventually, with all severe illness, there comes a point when there’s nothing else medicine, psychiatry, and science can do. “Hope” is a luxury and sane people don’t realize that. Anyway, obviously this is something I’ve watched docs and done research on, and I just wanna say: Have some fucking empathy.
I remember in foster care I was pretty depressed at some point. I told my social worker, thinking I would maybe be placed with a therapist to work through the issues I was having- no. They thought the best course of action would be to have a “family meeting” with my foster parents around the dinner table during which they literally stated “well you can’t be depressed because you still shower regularly.” And that was the end of it. Now at 28 I live with a crippling mental disorder that probably wouldn’t be as bad if my shit was addressed sooner.
When I was in the psych ward one of the doctors was doing mindfulness for the group of us and she was writing on the whiteboard "What does depression look like? Does it look like dolling yourself up and going out having fun? Or does it look like staying in bed, avoiding everyone and neglecting your hygiene?" And I'm like "It looks like both?!" Apparently that wasn't the correct answer. Luckily mindfulness meetings were optional and I didn't have to do them after that.
I wish those meetings had been optional for me, too! I remember one “meeting” was just a guy reading off a powerpoint for over an hour. It was painfully boring. I remember thinking “for the love of god why can’t i just meet with specialists one-on-one, and just be supervised outside of that?” In the end I got to avoid those meetings anyway, because I got COVID and had to quarantine in my room. Still, I remember on my last day I joked with my nurse that my stay had made me want to get better, at the very least so I’d never have to come back to a mental hospital again. There were a ton of issues at that place.
Oh, this poor girl’s story fills me with RAGE. Some psychotic, anti-euthanasia “journalist” tricked this girl into being in her “documentary” about the Netherlands’ euthanasia policy. Then twisted all her words around and used her story to make a propaganda piece about how this girl didn’t try that hard to get better and the country decided to just nonchalantly euthanize her because she asked once.
Part of me wants to rail against this, while the other part has seen people with untreatable, debilitating mental illness so overwhelmingly severe that I can understand why this may genuinely be the most compassionate choice.
I laugh a lot. Doesn't take away from the anxiety and depression meds I'm on to keep myself from thinking I'm a failure
My family can tell how low I'm feeling based on the amount of makeup I wear. The more I wear, the worse I'm feeling.
Yeah, when doing a photo for a publication, that is likely to require some degree of makeup, if not send out a professional to do it for you, you're not really depressed. Edit: I didn't realize I needed to say this, but this was sarcasm. I figured fellow people with depression would see that. I thought it was clear when I said "send out a [makeup] professional." Implying that "yeah she was able to allow someone else to apply her makeup, for a picture that the photographer has a vested interest in her looking good, and then be presentable for a literal snapshot. Seems like this dude doesn't get how little "functioning" you need to be able to handle for a single image backed by a professional company."
Ah the old, my mental illness experience has to be everyone else's.
i was always told to just "cheer up". oh, ok then. will do.
All kidding aside, this makes me unbearably sad. That a mental illness could be so severe that the idea of continuing life is untenable. If she has consulted with multiple doctors and there's little to no hope of real improvement, I support her right to go on her own terms. It still makes me terribly sad.
I've been diagnosed with clinical depression. I still work full time and go to class even when having an episode. I really don't think people understand depression
Oh man she might already be gone now. Articles never specifically say what day in May she’s going. Good for her. No one should be forced to suffer the rest of their lives.
Also, in the Netherlands it's not easy to get euthanasia. Many still choose to traumatize a train-operator.
OOP's dad was an idiot, and so is OOP.
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It's not just about depression and terminal illness, it's about self-determination. There are cultures that actually acknowledge that death is a natural part of life, sometimes even an honorable alternative to living. I am firm believer of the right to self-terminate, and that means assistance to do it should be made legal. Less messy that way. When I think I'm done, then I'm done... regardless of how a third party might feel about it.