Do you support the separation of psychiatry and state?

You seem to indicate that anything other than anarchy is the government treating adults like children.

 

I think if you were to seek more information, then you would understand that that is not the case. I do not support anarchy. I support property rights and a criminal justice system that goes after criminals who commit property crimes and violent crimes and probably quite a few other types of crimes. I am sure that there are other aspects of government that I support. I do not support prosecuting, fining and/or imprisoning non-violent users of drugs who do not steal to obtain money for drugs. I do not support the unholy matrimony of psychiatry and state and the effective imprisoning of individuals who indicate that they will end their own life.

I'm all for you contacting someone in his area to try and give him help in seeing that he can create a life worth living for himself. I'm for them going out to his house and staying on his property as long as he is willing to have him there. However, if no one is able to persuade him to not end his own life without the use of force, in my eyes, it is immoral and a violation of what should be considered a fundamental right of his as a human-being to physically stop and/or coerce him into not ending his own life or trying to end his own life. This discussion is perhaps much like a Buddhist and a Christian attempting to persuade one another that their own beliefs are correct, or someone in the 1800's attempting to persuade someone of a differing belief that slavery is wrong. Perhaps there is no significant point to the conversation.

 

The bottom line is that you would allow someone with plans of suicide to kill themselves. I wouldn't. Also, I believe anyone talking about suicide is asking for help because their life has become unbearable. I think it's better if hospitalization can be avoided, but in certain instances it is necessary. And, I hear of so many suicides of people that just don't have the life experience to put it all in perspective. Do you remember the story of the 18 yr old boy that killed himself for being publicly humiliated? He was secretly videotaped having sex with a man, and it was put online. His concern may have been people would know he was gay? Awkward for him, but certainly not worth jumping off a bridge for. Or, sometimes young people get suicidal just because they're not liked by their peers. They have their whole life ahead of them, what a waste! And with the economy, suicide rates have gone up in the US. So many of these problems people take their life for are so temporary. It's tragic. I feel badly too, for all the people they leave behind that suffer from that bad decision.

Not really. Only speaking our minds, being a forum and all. Obviously, this is a subject we could easily go back and forth without ever agreeing upon. We may just have to agree to disagree.

 

I worked in a crisis hotline when I was in college. I found that almost all the people that threatened suicide where actually doing what Rebecca wrote - it was a cry for help. These people were H.A.L.T. - Hungry, Angry. Lonely, and Tired. The cry of suicide was a last desperate attempt to get someone, anyone, to show some care and concern for them.

Having said that, here in Massachusetts tomorrow I plan on voting Yes on Question 2 (physician assisted suicide). Last year about this time I watched my Aunt spend her last days in horrible pain in the hospital as cancer finished her off. Physician assisted suicide would have been the merciful thing to do.

 

I'm with you on that. I'm a big supporter of Jack Kervorkian's work. There is a huge difference between a distressed teen who cuts their wrists in a desperate grasp at attention and a person suffering, alone, in pain in their senior years.

 

I agree with the part in bold.

But with Kevorkian, here is an excerpt of an article I found about him in the Detroit Free Press.

I'm sorry your Aunt suffered in her last days. We had a family member that was very dear to me. A few years back she had a sudden medical problem. She required two emergency surgeries. The first she came out of fine. After the second surgery, she never reclaimed her ability to breathe on her own. She ended up in the hospital for months. At a certain point it became evident she wouldn't survive. Her organs began to fail. She wrote on a piece of paper she wanted to be taken off life support. We did. It's still painful to think of. I wouldn't really consider it physician assisted suicide. Her death was coming, and she just wanted to be off the artificial breathing support. So, I do believe in removing life support at the request of a terminally ill patient. But I think with physician assisted suicide, most people are talking about giving a lethal drug to a terminally ill patient. It seems a fine line. I have concerns about it. One being that euthanasia is not a normal duty of a physician. Even the original Hippocratic Oath says, "I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked." The physician's role is healer. I have other misgivings as well. Would it be standard procedure to mention suicide as an option to all terminally ill patients? Would patients reluctantly choose this so they're not a burden on their family? What if the physicians prognosis is wrong? On the other hand, I read a little about the measure in Massachusetts. I like how it has certain safeguards. For example, terminally ill being defined as less than 6 months, and being certified by two doctors. Plus, having the patient make two oral requests at least 15 days apart, then a written request signed by two witnesses. It also has provisions that disallow it to be used when the patient is deemed to have impaired judgment. I don't know. Even if I was terminally ill, personally, I just couldn't take my own life. With that said, I do understand in a situation of terminal illness how it could be considered by some as an option. And like O'nation said, "There is a huge difference between a distressed teen who cuts their wrists in a desperate grasp at attention and a person suffering, alone, in pain in their senior years."

 

Rebecca, I'm sorry to hear about your family member and I can sympathize. As far as removing life support, I believe that it is legal for someone to REFUSE medical care. Question 2 is, as you've written about actively speeding their death:
http://www.sec.state.ma.us/ele/ele12/ballot_questions_12/quest_2.htm

I had written about my Aunt's death a year ago here. With 2 or 3 days of life left, she was in terrible pain. Her mind was awake but her body was SLOWLY shutting down. I used every ounce of knowledge and intelligence to figure out what I needed to do and say, say, and how to do and say it, to the attending nurses to end her life early. I figured out what to say, I said it carefully and properly. That night at 2 AM we got the phone call that she had mercifully passed away.

One thing I've learned in life is, there is the way the system is SUPPOSED to work, and there is the way the system REALLY works. Question 2 helps the latter.

 

I wonder how I can more successfully help others to see what has happened regarding the union between psychiatry and state. I hope I can be become better at communicating reason.

 

I think you're great at communicating your thoughts. This is probably just a subject that most people have already made up their mind about, for or against. Look at this, a suicide just because Obama got elected.

Even if he hated him that much, it's just four more years. So sad.

 

One thing I learned is, a suicide already feels their life is unbearable, he just needed a trigger. If it wasn't the election, it could have been getting cut off on the freeway.

 

That must be true. Whenever I hear about a suicide, the reason given doesn't seem to justify it. In the last example, I found another article with more detail. It said the man ran a tanning salon. I guess he thought Obama was bad for his business. Maybe he was. I don't know. But really? Life is what it is. It's hard to understand how people get to that point. Obviously, he must have been mentally ill already. There was a different article I read yesterday. I just glanced at it. But it was something about a grandma that took her three grandchildren out of school to kill them and herself together, I believe about a custody battle. It doesn't make any sense.

 

Certain people are mentally predisposed to it. Interesting fact about the guy who killed himself because Obama got reelected. He was gay.

 

I used to participate in Douglas Rushkoff's Yahoo! Group. Rushkoff is so liberal he makes Earl look like Reagan. Anyway, he was outwardly promoting some guy in Chicago that, well, Rushkoff said he "immobilized" himself because of Bush's re-election and the Iraq war. Someone pointed out that it was a suicide by someone already diagnosed and institutionalized as mentally unstable. It was pointed out that Iraq was just a trigger, and it might was well have been that his coffee was too hot. Rushkoff would have none of that, it wasn't suicide it was "immolation" (but that's another word for suicide), and that there would be more of the same because of Iraq. Rushkoff was scary, and the Yahoo! group lost momentum after that.

I agree, it doesn't make any sense.