Death demands a relationship with us, whether we accept or deny. You can fear it, run from it, and try to delay it, but there is an inevitability in life that you can always count on. It will end.
Morality and Medicine was published in 1954 by Josef Fletcher, illustrating his observations on the impending controversy regarding the right to die. Four years later, Lael Wertenbaker published Death of a Man, portraying the story of how she helped her husband commit suicide.
Science and belief have been closely intertwined throughout the history of time, and while black and white hard truths would be infinitely easier to digest, the reality is as grey as the uneasy sky outside, swelling with unshed tears.
Night is falling, but the sky has been heavy for hours, an omniscient presence promising to wash us all away. I’m sitting with someone I love, our feet propped on an outdoor table, matching chairs with jewel toned cushions. We alternate between looking out at the darkening sky and sharing even darker expressions. Pain. Sadness. Impossibility. Exhaustion.
There voice takes on a cutting edge, laced with bitterness.
“People say you should think of your family and friends, but what about yourself? What about the pain I’m in?”
They look at me, eyes glistening, and the heartbreak in their downturned shoulders, their silent tears and slow moving lips, as if talking is an effort they wish to be free from.
“I just want permission to die,” They say in a small voice.
I’ve never felt so helpless, so impossibly human and incapable because I don’t know how to make this better. Worse still, I know exactly how they’re feeling. I remember all too easily that hopeless and dark slippery hole. Bloody fingernails with broken edges, slicked mud and grime coating your skin from fighting to claw your way out of the depths of a mind you no longer understand.
How do you help them when you have no rope to throw? What do you do when you lean over the edge, your outstretched arm an impossible distance from their reach? What happens when they lean against the slick wall, rivulets running down their arms, their legs, a never ending flow of blood and tears?
Mental health has been so glamorized in recent media that it’s easy to forget that depression isn’t a normal mindset. Suicide is regarded with such flippant tongue that admission of these thoughts are blanketed, swept under a rug of shrugged shoulders and “what do you want me to do about it” kind of attitudes.
The Death with Dignity website released an Oregon 2018 report on the use of physician assisted suicide, claiming that more than 60% of patients were over 65 and had cancer, and 90% were on hospice at the time of death. The most frequently recorded reasons for death were loss of dignity, loss of autonomy and decreasing ability to participate in activities that made life enjoyable.
Depression is a wet blanket thrown over the heat of joy. It’s a glass jar, enclosing even the slightest of flames, nothing left but a burnt wick and the slight scent of something that used to be. The numb detachment isn’t even the worst part. It’s not being able to understand why your brain has turned on you, why your thoughts have grown thorns, pricking into your mind with debilitating slurs and cruel promises.
You are worthless, It purrs, shoving you further into the hopelessness until the only light is the flash of a gun or the streetlights so very far below. Alone, it can be impossible to see anything else, but the exhaustive trap of mental health is not a terminal illness. There is treatment. There is help. There is hope, even if people like my friend can’t see it yet.
Death with Dignity is a final resort to physical pain that exists through a terminal end. Emotional suffering is not a terminal case. Suicide is not dignified. Mental illness is not glorious.
I’ve been sitting on these thoughts for the entirety of National Suicide Awareness week, unable to wrap up my thoughts without preaching or getting spiritual, but it’s nearly impossible. Life purpose is entwined with spiritual ideals, and every person out there is fighting the same battle, searching for the things that make it all worth it. That doesn’t need a religion or right winged cult to be acknowledged.
There is no trophy for gathering up all your achievements and proclaiming that you are more deserving than another. You were born a human being on this earth, you deserve to be here, experience the beauty of living and loving and feeling.
We screw up. It’s part of that innate thing that makes you human, but what matters is how you react with the knowledge you gain. Forgiveness and self acceptance are close friends, and loving yourself starts with being able to forgive your mistakes.
Life moves as a flow of cause and effect. You are part of that web, integral to the outcome of the world. Everything you do has an impact greater than you could ever imagine, and a smile, a kind gesture, a helping hand all contribute to the bigger picture.
You matter on a micro level. You have a direct impact on the relationships surrounding you, your environment, people and creatures less fortunate. You mean something to them. You are important, and the world would in no way shape or form be a better place without you in it. So many people would be worse off without you in it.
Death with Dignity is for the hopeless, the terminal patients whose physical ailments have become too difficult to overcome. The body breaks down a lot faster than the mind, and there are so many people trained to help you out of that deep dark hole.
Life is full of hardship. You will be disappointed. You will feel shame and regret, but existing in your pain and suffering may as well be a living death. Suicide takes away your opportunity to experience the full spectrum of this world, and how dare you take that away from you, a human being full of infinite potential, if only they would believe they were capable.
National Suicide Prevention Hotline Call 1-800-273-8255
Free Suicide Text Help https://www.crisistextline.org/
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