DISABLING FACTORS AND LIMITED CONTROL

Those with refractory mental illness who wish to put an end to their lives through euthanasia are usually troubled by how limiting their lives become with the burden of their mental illnesses, and how difficult it thus becomes to move forward with their lives in such a way that it is reasonably worth living. These individuals are often troubled by the many disabling factors that often come with living with mental illness, most of which are outside of their control and hinder their ability to advance through life smoothly. The following is a list of some of the most common of such factors, and they are either internal or external:

Internal Factors

l Mood Disturbances: Those with refractory mental illness are usually afflicted by strong, uncomfortable emotions. In their particular case, these uncomfortable, painful emotions are hardly manageable even with the most current treatment methods at their disposal, and have persevered for unreasonable long periods of time. These refractory emotions become a form of chronic pain that the chronic sufferers must endure on a regular bases, almost constantly stalling growth in their other dimensions of wellness and making their sentient experience become significantly less bearable.

l Unpleasant Medication Sideffects: As if the torment of having a mental illness wasn’t bad enough, many of the pharmaceuticals available come with sideffects that cause a host of additional issues, such as weight gain, a foggy brain, uncomfortable brain sensations, vomiting, severe sedation, fainting, among others. Many individuals with refractory mental illness have to deal with the tough task of living with unpleasant medication sideffects just to see a glimpse of relief from the disabling symptoms of their mental illnesses.         

l  Emotional Dysregulation: many individuals with refractory mental illness who are victims of trauma often struggle to regulate their temper so that they can live in harmony with everyone around them. Many such individuals know better than to lash out or otherwise act in ways that can be perceived as hostile to others, yet they cannot control their outbursts as much as they wish they could. This, in turn, causes the further-hindering phenomenon of social thinning.

External Factors

l Social Thinning and Stigma: Many with refractory mental illness have either been stigmatized for having the serious mental health struggles that consume them, or have been blacklisted, deserted, and blocked out of the life of a person or group of people because of their persistent difficulty in coping with the symptoms of their mental illnesses, thus creating feelings of guilt on the mentally ill individual, and thus increasing their agony and suicidal urges.

l Punishment: Those with refractory mental illness who struggle with Emotional Dysregulation often find themselves losing control over their temper and violating codes of ethics in a wide variety of arenas, often finding themselves facing sanctions, reprimand, or arrest for their actions.

l Occupational Dysfunction: Many individuals with refractory mental illness face a persistent struggle to function at the very minimum in order to achieve important tasks such as learning for academic success, or working with efficacy to succeed in a job position. It is no wonder that there are many individuals with mental illness who live on the streets, unable to care for themselves. It is also quite common for those with refractory mental illness to be hardly capable of completing a degree and/or sustaining a reputable job, often times settling for lower-income type jobs and facing chronic financial concerns.

l Lack of Access to Resources: For many individuals with refractory mental illness, getting to see a therapist or access to medications are not affordable options due to money concerns or a lack of insurance, which can be rather difficult to get in some jurisdictions. It is quite common for providers to refuse to take insurance and to charge exorbitant fees per one session, as can be seen in the provider directory of websites like www.psychologytoday.com. Also, for those with refractory mental illness who need more specialized care, such as ECT or therapy geared toward healing trauma, such options may be either unaffordable (for the reasons mentioned earlier) or unavailable- it is not uncommon for facilities that provide these services to be at capacity and unable to take in new patients.  

The list of disabling factors goes on. However, as different and as diverse as these factors may be, they all involve one serious predicament in common- in the vast majority of cases, they are outside of the control of the mentally ill who endure them. Since those with refractory mental illness are subject to these disabling factors on a regular basis because of their recurrent struggle to cope with their mental illnesses, the level of control that they have over their life’s path declines significantly, while their level of suffering soars. Therefore, it holds that the less control you have over your mind and body, the less control you have over your life, and it is this lack of control over mental illness and its outcomes which snowball into a mixture of disabling factors that altogether crush those with refractory mental illness like an avalanche. It is no wonder, then, that a self-directed death would become a tempting option for them as it would allow what little control they have in the outcome of their lives. Euthanasia= total control over the continuing or not of a life in which they have little or no control over the disabling factors that consume their whole being, including the mental illnesses that heavily contribute to many of those factors. An oppressive, abusive government would not only deny the mentally ill such control, but would also manipulate the mentally ill in thinking they “lack the clarity of thought” to make the choice to end their lives. It doesn’t take “clarity of thought” for someone to know that they are in pain and that nothing at their disposal has proven effective to reduce that pain enough to allow for a life worth living.

It’s time to give those with refractory mental illness control over their lives, including the choice of whether or not they will continue living it. No government or entity has the legal or ethical right to strip those with refractory mental illness of the right to choose to cease to live if they do not wish to do so. Not only are such governments or entities oppressive when they deny those rights, but they are yet another major disabling factor that those with refractory mental illness must contend with- one that  strips them of their freedom to end their pain through death (thus perpetuating their misery), and downgrades and discredits their ability to make the best possible decisions about their dire and complex situation. No such entity could ever be considered “supportive” of those with refractory mental illness.      

DISCLAIMER

The main intent of this blog is to expose the experience of living with refractory mental illness from the angle of a fraction of the mental health resource consumer population which wishes to see Dr. Assisted Suicide (Euthanasia) become a legal means of ending the emotional instability and psycho-social turmoil that comes as a result of living with recurrent mental illness. In this blog, we believe that Dr. Assisted Suicide for the Mentally Ill should be legalized in the US and abroad, and that the mentally ill should be granted the legal right to choose between living despite the severe challenges they face, or ending a life of torment to which they may wish to die. We want to raise awareness of the suffering, oppression, and injustices endured by those in the faction of the consumer population which is dissatisfied with a life of remission they do not wish to live, and which they live by regulatory force and oppression from mental health facilities, law enforcement, and government legislators in many parts of the world. 

This blog is not intended to be used as a channel to engage in illegal activity of any kind. This blog is not designed to give advice in handling suicide methods and affairs, nor in encouraging suicidal subjects to end their life on their own efforts or through illegal means. All mental health or other safety concerns are always encouraged to be brought forth to a certified mental health institution. This blog is solely intended to bring awareness to the issues mentioned above, and to help anti-euthanasia policymakers and activists understand that suicide prevention programs and measures which are provided by force, and not consent, are unfair measures of oppression and stranglehold whose coercive nature can not only traumatize their target patients, but may often times fail to perform any lasting, helpful, and therapeutic function in the long run.

In order to maintain the legal standing of this blog as a channel of opinion in support of the Legalization of Assisted Suicide for the Mentally Ill, all messages or posts soliciting the above or other illegal activity will be deleted.

I, the creator of this blog, am not responsible for any choices that its readers make, legal or not, as a result of reading the content of this blog. Everyone who reads this blog, or writes for it, acknowledges this disclaimer to its entirety.  

EUTHANASIA SUPPORTERS VS. OPPONENTS: CAUSES OF THEIR DIVIDE

It is quite paradoxical that the two large groups of people above, despite being sharply divided on this debate, may share almost exactly the same life experiences, teachings, influences, upbringings, etc. In other words, they may differ in views on this topic while still sharing very much in common. Two adoptive siblings, for example, may be unfortunate to suffer deeply traumatic abuses from parents or caregivers in their childhood, developing recurrent psychiatric disorders and traumas that severely impair their learning abilities in their schooling, and their labor skills in the workforce. Still, it is possible for both adoptive siblings to grow into adulthood being completely divided on this issue despite sharing very similar struggles- while one of the siblings, despite the suffering that he or she may have endured in their own life, may still become inclined to advocate for the preservation of the lives of those with refractory mentally illness at all cost, the other sibling may have a much more antinatalist stance on the issue that he or she derives for their own traumatic experiences. On the other side of the coin, it is just as possible for two biological siblings who have come from a much more nurturing family in childhood that has enabled them to succeed in their educational and career pursuits, to be divided on the issue.

What is it, then, that causes this sharp divide? From the examples above, it is construable that life experiences alone aren’t necessarily guides for a person to favor one view or the other. Rather, there are three known factors that influence both inclinations.

DIFFERENCES IN COPING THRESHOLDS

Differences in coping threshold, or resilience, is a key factor that polarizes those who oppose Euthanasia for the mentally ill from those who support it. In many cases, opponents of Euthanasia for the mentally ill tend to be much more resilient individuals than many of their euthanasia-supporting counterparts in this debate, which helps explain their lesser regard for the suffering of the severely mentally ill who wish to be euthanized. Consequently, anti-euthanasia advocates often see the predicaments of suicidal individuals in the context of their more resilient experience, rather than that of the level of pain and suffering that a suicidal individual may be suffering, and therefore fail to take that into account when imposing their anti-euthanasia agenda on the mentally ill who wish to be euthanized. This leads them to make the misguided assumption that, because they have managed to cope with the challenges of living with mental illness, that everyone else who lives with mental illness 'should' and 'must' do the same. 

DIFFERENCES IN BELIEF SYSTEMS

The field of psychology teaches us that it is our perception, beliefs, or ideas towards any event, person, or idea (rather than the event, person, or idea themselves) what directly inspire the behaviors with which we react to those things. This phenomenon is especially true in this debate as a wide variety of beliefs direct our leanings on this highly controversial issue. The following is a list of some of these beliefs.

Mental Health System-Imposed Dogma

The mental health system in the United States, for example, is directly responsible for orchestrating a nationwide, anti-euthanasia regime which draws on suicide prevention initiatives, anti-euthanasia laws, and opposition to euthanasia for the mentally ill from the general public, to instill in people’s heads a very simple belief about the mentally ill who wish to die:

The mentally ill who wish to end their suffering through death are always in a state or condition of being incapable of adequate decision-making, and it is therefore always unethical to allow them to end their suffering through these means.

This fallacy is the key reason why clinicians and caregivers of a suicidal person often fail to take into consideration the amount of pain that a suicidal person with severe mental illness may be going through, for how long, or under what circumstances, when imposing their anti-suicide agenda on the suicidal individual. They mistakenly assume that the key issue that a suicidal person is facing is always a mere “lack of clarity of thought,” rather than a much more profoundly troubling factor like unbearable and recurrent emotional pain and circumstances outside of their control that exacerbate it. In other words, a circumstance where resilience is lacking, disabling factors are abounding, and protective factors are hardly within reach.

Beliefs About Life and Death

Differing perceptions of life’s worth and the consequences of Death often causes many to disperse in opinion on the question of whether or not the severely mentally ill should be granted the possibility of euthanasia. However, the vast majority of people involved in this debate generally fall under two categories: those to whom life is sacred and death is a curse (in other words, those who perceive Life as being better than death), and those to whom Life is an experience of recurrent torment and Death is an escape from it (that is, those who perceive Death as being better than Life).

· Belief That Life is Better Than Death

Through centuries, life has been venerated as a gift and a miracle in most civilizations. Life allows us to come to this world to see the good, live with the good, and enjoy the good in it. The liveliness of friends and loved ones who enrich our lives through their involvement with us adds to our enjoyment of the good in the world, and it is this general “good” that makes our lives on earth worthwhile and at the same time enjoyable. This element of general “goodness” that gives meaning to our lives is what drives many to faithfully believe that “Life is good.” Death, however, robs us of many of these things. It robs us of the opportunity to enjoy the good things that life has to offer when it takes our own life. Death also robs us of the joy we get from the friends and relatives that death takes from us. Death is not only an agent that replaces the people we love with painful voids in our hearts that we must wrestle by undergoing the stages of grief, but it even pushes us into a face-to-face encounter with a factor that most humans repel at all cost: the unknown. We don’t know what there is after life on earth (if anything at all), nor do we know where our deceased loved ones will be or where we will go after we die.

Many anti-euthanasia advocates oppose euthanasia for the severely mentally ill because they view life as something “good,” or even “sacred.” Therefore, the legalization of euthanasia for the mentally ill would mean, from their point of view, that the loved ones of those euthanized would be “worse off” unable to be around to enjoy the “good” in life, thus making the life preservation of those with severe mental illness of far greater importance than firstly ensuring whether or not a life worth living can be sustained by them or for them in the first place.

· Belief That Death is Better Than Life

Euthanasia supporters, on the other hand, see the above panorama with the exact opposite lenses. They are mostly concerned with the bad things about life that have made the lives of those with severe mental illness intolerable. Life, after all, makes us susceptible to suffering because of the human condition we are all born with. While some individuals are able to live in this world with ease of access to the good in life and to bring about more good from it to their own lives and the lives of others, other individuals aren’t so lucky. Many individuals with severe mental illness often lack the levels of resilience that are needed to cope with the pain and handicaps instilled by their illnesses to where any enjoyment of or access to the “good” things in life is either impossible or difficult to achieve without enormous amounts of pain and suffering in these processes. Mentally ill individuals who experiences a recurrent struggle to gain or maintain relationships, employment, independence, or a general sense of serenity and inner peace because of the marked difficulties they encounter in treating their own mental illnesses, and tolerating their distressful symptoms, are examples of this phenomenon. Their lack of resilience on these situations combined with the recurrent nature of their struggles thus makes the “bad” in life become the main theme of their existence. And it is here where death, rather than life, is good and more favorable. Death takes over the role of the rescuing element that kills the “bad,” pain-inducing elements that the more contemptible life brings into the table to make their sentient existence all the more painful. The end result of this dilemma, which the mentally ill are entrapped by, is their stronger preference for death to get rid of the “bad” in life that exacerbates their suffering over living for the “good” in life which they struggle to attain, maintain, or enjoy amid painful circumstances.

DIFFERENCES IN PRIORITIES AND VALUES

When evaluating the possible ways to eradicate the pain of the chronically mentally ill, those who oppose their euthanization have very different priorities from those who favor it. Both sides of this controversy value two different elements of the life of a chronically mentally ill individual, which puts them at odds.

Life Preservation

Those who oppose euthanasia in this debate value the life of the chronically mentally ill above all else, hence their focus on life preservation. From their perspective, neither the intensity nor the duration of the pain of a chronically mentally ill individual match in importance to their very life being intact under any and all circumstances because they believe that life alone, regardless of how burdensome it may be, has infinite value. They revere the aliveness of the individual as the most important of all aspects of that person’s being, and they believe that no amount of their suffering is reason enough to extinguish it, regardless of how intolerable, recurrent, or life-hindering it may be.

Pain Extinction

Those who favor euthanasia in this debate value much more than just the mere aliveness of the chronically mentally ill. They value the sentient experience and the coping ability / coping threshold of those with refractory mental illness, and the quality of life that follows from the combination of those factors. Euthanasia proponents hold the dignity and freedom of choice of the mentally ill at higher regard than their mere being alive, and rebuke the idea that those with refractory mental illness ever have to put up with illnesses that cause them recurrent suffering, and are hardly responsive to treatment, only because legislations force them to do so and because clinicians frown upon them choosing to be euthanized. Euthanasia supporters, unlike their counterparts, do not place value on the life of a person if they want to extinguish it to end intolerable pain. Pursuing the best sentient experience possible is a greater priority for them than life preservation.    

CONCLUSION

The key difference between anti-euthanasia, pro-life dogmatists and their counterparts in this debate is that the previous prioritize life preservation over pain eradication, while the latter value the wellness of the sentient experience of those with refractory mentally illness over their mere aliveness. A just society would allow people in each faction have the right to take part in their preferred side of this debate and to show advocacy for it. However, such a society ceases to be just when it favors and serves the mentally ill in one faction but not those on the other. A society that serves the mentally ill only by euthanizing them is an oppressive society- It serves the mentally ill who wish to be euthanized but leaves those who wish to continue living with no recourse to find healing from their illnesses. Likewise, a society that serves the mentally ill only by providing a variety of treatments is a negligent society- it serves the mentally ill who choose (and benefit from) the treatment available to them, but leaves those who do not respond to treatment without further recourse for eradication of their intolerable suffering. Unfortunately, most nations in the world (including the United States) currently fall under the latter category. 

INTRODUCTION

There has always been a stubborn attitude of taboo and aversion in the mental health community in the United States (and in that of many other parts of the world) towards the idea of a person with refractory mental illness being allowed to choose death as a means to put an end to the intolerable, disabling, and life-damaging suffering that they experience because of their struggle to cope with their mental illnesses. The United States, for example, does not grant doctors the legal right to aid even their most  persistently troubled patients in their wishes to achieve death to be set free from their excruciating battles, and most clinicians in the country are in full support of these legal restrictions without question.  Likewise, a large percentage of mental health consumers and non-consumers alike are just as supportive of those restrictions as they are unsympathetic (and often hostile) towards anyone who calls for these restrictions to be lifted. They often gaslight any mentally ill individual who expresses wishes to undergo Dr. Assisted Suicide, and they chastise anyone who supports those wishes. They typically do these things by referencing pro-life, anti-death doctrine that they derive from the mental health system’s teachings, religious beliefs, and culturally established norms to justify their backlash. They are also driven by the devastating stories of those who grieve the suicide of a loved one to add momentum to the spread of hatred and repulsion in people’s minds towards the prospect of granting the severely mentally ill the freedom to choose the timing of their own death, despite the intense amount of emotional, psychological, and psycho-social suffering that these troubled consumers may find themselves enduring on a regular basis. Those against Dr. Assisted Suicide for the severely mentally ill often act on the presumption that no such suffering is worse that the self-directed extinction of those pain-stricken lives and its impact on bereavers, and that it is therefore necessary to use any resources at hand (including the most brutal, forceful, and degrading if necessary) to suppress any effort made by someone with refractory mental illness that could ever lead to such outcomes.

On the other side of the dispute on the legitimacy of Dr. Assisted Suicide for the mentally ill lay those with refractory mental illness who resent the oppressive measures that the mental health system in their locales take to deny them any access to euthanasia. This faction involves many individuals with severe mental illness who have diligently put themselves through years of treatment that have not yielded adequate or sufficient coping resources (if any at all) to bring about the strength of mind they need to turn their lives around into ones remotely worth living; It involves numerous consumers who face considerable struggles, for prolonged periods of time, to function within society in such ways that they can afford to fulfill their basic necessities (such as food, shelter, self-care tools) or to earn and maintain privileges within mainstream society (such as employment, relationships, resources for recreations, etc.) that would give their life meaning and would help counterweight the darker side of their lives; it involves those who are ostracized for facing considerable difficulties controlling behaviors, compulsions, or impulses that lead them to violate cultural norms of behavioral propriety or universal codes of conduct on a regular basis, thus “earning” them bad karma and negative consequences that they are not necessarily ready to endure without added suffering and distress, leading the subject into an ever-worsening dysfunctional life in the form of a downward vicious cycle that only worsens symptoms and life circumstances over time. In sum, a large number of people who favor euthanasia for the mentally ill are those with mental illness whose conditions have made their lives unmanageable, despite all efforts they may have made to overcome the distressful living challenges that so often torment them. It also involves those who have lost all strength to tolerate anymore pain and suffering in the short term, and anymore uncertainty for the long term, and therefore find it more beneficial to end a life of torment than to continue an uncertain, treacherous path to recovery that does not guarantee relief or access to the resources and privileges that make living worthwhile and enjoyable.

ABOUT THIS BLOG

The purpose of this blog is to bring about change in the way that our world at large perceives euthanasia for the mentally ill. This blog is in full support of euthanasia for those with refractory mentally illness, and it aims to condemn the current oppressive measures and abusive practices that clinicians in the United States and the World at large support in order to forcefully preserve the lives of the severely mentally ill who wish to put and end to their recurrent torment through euthanasia. In this blog, we believe that those with refractory mental illness have every right to choose the timing of their own death, and that no clinician, regime, or government has any ethical ground to take those rights away from them, especially in consideration of the fact that refractory mental illness cannot be cured nor is it responsive to any available form of treatment in the vast majority of cases.  

This blog also aims to help bring about change to current oppressive policies forbidding those with refractory mental illness from being euthanized at their request. In this blog, we believe that the amount of pain and suffering of an individual with severe mental illness should be taken into consideration as part of their treatment, and that the answer to eliminate their pain, when unresponsive to drugs or cognitive behavioral methods, should be death rather than on-going recommendations of more drugs and more ECT or TMS sessions that, in these cases, have failed to yield positive results again and again.