Wednesday 15 June 2011

Assissted suicide

I watched a programme about assisted suicide today. It was hard to watch, but it did clarify for me that I want to set my own 'point of no return' - the situation beyond which I don't want to live any more.

It was interesting watching the programme, that both of the people who died, decided to take their lives quite a bit earlier than seemed necessary. The thing was though, that they were both suffering from degenerative conditions. They were aware that if they waited till they were really ill enough to want to die, they'd be past the point where they could actually do anything about it. So they had to take pre-emptive action.

I'm not in that position, but still I feel that setting some parameters in advance would be helpful. It would also stop me worrying that I was doing it just as a knee jerk reaction to a bad episode; when I do this, I want me and everyone else to be sure that it was considered and planned.

I used to say that my point-of-no-return was when I couldn't work any more. But I haven't been able to work for months now, and it's surprised me that I haven't felt it time to give in to the ever-present desire to end it all.

The key seems to be my mental state. I've felt so low and unable to cope with even the simplest of things over the past few months, that I'm actually happy not to be working. I don't feel able to work, so the doing-nothing that I always thought would be untenable, in fact is the best thing for me.

So maybe my point of no return is more about when I can't work physically, but mentally I can. The frustration of being useless and unproductive, when my brain is buzzing and active, would be the key. But what else?

I think that if I reach the point where I can no longer work and, crucially, I can no longer afford to live in a nice place - because my savings have run out and the idiot government won't support me - that will be it. The thought of living in some hovel, with the noise and nastiness that often goes with it, whilst also trying to live with the pain, depression and insomnia would be unbearable.

Also, if the morphine stops working no matter how much I take, or for some reason the doctors take it away from me, that will be it too.

There may well be more, I need to give it more thought, but that's a start.

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