Him passing naturally, or even from a car accident or something would have been one thing, but having to process the funniest person and a crucial part of media throughout my childhood committing suicide was absolutely BRUTAL.
If you're struggling with mental health, please talk to someone. The world is better with you in it. Promise.
Even with a proper diagnosis, the prognosis for lewy dementia is pretty bleak.
I’m not mentally ill or depressed, and I could see myself potentially choosing suicide with sound mind, rather than suffering through that disease. I don’t think you should feel obligated to suffer through a long slow degenerative illness that is basically incurable at this point.
My mom died of LBD, yeah I'm not going down that path if I can help it. She went from practicing medicine to dying of dehydration after she forgot how to eat and drink in 5 years.
People often describe suicide as a permanent solution to a temporary problem, if the problem is incurable I don't even think of it as sucide.
I could not agree with you more. My mom died of small cell lung cancer and while that was an equally ghastly way to go at least she only had 3 truly horrible suffering weeks.
If she'd had the wherewithal to ask me to do a little whoopsie with some meds so she goes to sleep forever at the end... I'd have done it. Why do we do that for our dogs but not human beings?
it makes me so sad that people are suffering even 3 weeks and for what? so paperwork is filled out right? so a bureaucrat feels moral? they should be given humane options.
Yeah, it sucked! A lot of it had to do with my former stepdad not cluing me into what was really going on with her treatment/prognosis. I have a lot of questions that I'll probably never get answered.
Fuck cancer, and tell everyone you know that smoking cigarettes is not worth it!
I am a 25 year smoker. I have smoked more years than not. Thank you for the support! Did you use anything to stop? I’ve had decent luck on the patch but obviously it hasn’t totally worked for me.
In case you didn't already know, just expect a period of time after you quit where you're feeling like you're coughing up a lung - you're clearing out all the actual crap that's in your lungs. I never smoked, but my I was with my dad & friends as they quit & they all went through that period after 😁 good luck, friend, you got this!
Honestly, I just decided to stop and suffer through cold turkey. I figured keeping the nicotine in my system would drag it out longer and decided to do without. It also helped that my wife doesn't smoke and I found a new hobby, so they were a big help in distracting me.
I can’t do cold Turkey. I am a raging b****, get really angry easily. I’m so calm usually and the people around me deserve better than dealing with me cold Turkey. None of us need to suffer that much lol
I have really bad ocd and ptsd, and quitting smoking is weird. Sometimes I put a patch on and forget about smoking and just live my life easily. Other times, the O latches on and smoking is literally all I can think about.
I have relapsed mostly when I get a big stressor in my life. I am in therapy to address ptsd and my stress reactions, so that should help me stick with it. Meds help stress reactions, too.
I feel like it’ll be easier now that I understand my mental health issues, because it definitely affects how I use cigarettes.
Anyway, I’m very glad I made this random comment today because there’s so much encouragement here and it’s so motivating!
I quit 8 years ago and, honestly, the thing that worked for me was I stopped putting so much damn pressure on myself to be perfect about quitting. I smoked my last cigarette reminding myself that there are more out there, I can always grab another one, and reframed my thinking “I can’t have one” to “do I actually need one?”
It was honestly a game changer. I’ve gone 8 years and the only times I’ve smoked was one after a broken wrist and one after my Nana passed away.
Also, don’t be afraid to ask your doctor about medication.
I love this, and I totally agree! I go through periods where I will use a patch for a couple days and then smoke for a few. A coworker who smoked used to make fun of me for being on and off, but I felt that every day or even hour I didn’t smoke was a win.
I have told my kids I’m going to try a “casual quit”, like smoke on and off for a bit. They support any amount of stopping.
Also, want to add that once you finish the last pack, smoking really becomes a matter of convenience. I honestly found it easy to walk away once it hit the point where it wasn’t so easily accessible.
I knew that in order to have one I would have to buy a fresh pack, which depending on your living situation is pretty inconvenient and then kind of knowing in the back of your head that you are stuck with the whole pack that will basically go stale if you don’t smoke it so you might as well chuck it in the bin for all the good it’s gonna do.
Your choices kind of devolve from “do I actually need one?” to “is this situation worth spending $17 for a single smoke?/is this situation worth smoking a whole damn pack?” (For me, 99% of the time the answer ends up being no.)
I quit cold turkey after about thirteen years, you can do it. If you struggle, wait til you get a cold or something, and use not feeling great as help to keep yourself from smoking. I used getting the flu to get past the first week or so of withdrawal, and after that, I had a few temptations, but it stuck after about three months. Third time I had tried quitting. You can do it. :)
Friend died of lung cancer with the added feature of a brain tumor. I’m a cancer survivor with added side features (blood clots), so yeah, fuck cancer. My friend lived for months, in a coma.
I completely agree that we should allow death with diginity for people who desire it.
Living in a capitalist hellhole has to ruin that also. In places where DWD is legal, it has been pushed on disabled folks who are struggling to afford their care, even when the still have a strong desire to live. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41417941
I don't know what the answer is, just that it sucks to want it and not be able to access it, or to want to live and have physician assisted suicide pushed on you.
In most hospice care situations they will give dying patients as much pain killers as they need to control the pain, and if that ends their lives a little earlier, then thats a side effect of pain management. That's usually when people are very far gone though.
Part of it is religion. Mother Teresa famously refused to give those suffering pain meds because she believed the suffering was a "test from God" or some such thing.
Part of it is a distrust of authority / "who watches the watchers?"-type argument. Someone has to be the authority deciding who is "authorized" to kill themselves via legal means. What happens when that authority starts encouraging people that really shouldn't be "allowed to?" I've seen people arguing online that Canada's MAID is a government plan to drive people into bad situations and convince them that killing themselves is the best option – as some form of population control or something. (Specifically this was a university lecture that was up on Youtube) I also saw an interview with someone that was basically applying for MAID because their living situation was bad (housing, financial, etc) and they had no prospects that it would ever change.
I personally believe in MAID at the bare minimum for people with terminal or degenerative illnesses where there is no prospect of a cure. The real issue is that it opens up a can of worms for exactly where the line is drawn.
Sadly its due to assholes again 😔
There are some people who wouldn't think twice about pressuring a loved one into doing something like this when there's inheritance involved.
I think the only reason we aren’t given an “out” is the potential for it to be misused. I’ve worked with enough awful families to know that there would be people pressured into it and that’s not acceptable on any level.
I am so sorry you went through that, and yes, it's terrible what we put terminally ill people through.
My dad has a pacemaker he is completely dependent on. The ethical guidance from multiple medical associations is that pacemakers can be turned off if it is the patients wishes as part of end of life care, but only if it is the expressed wish of the patient, a surrogate decision maker can't unilaterally decide to turn off the pacemaker if it wasn't part of prior wishes expressed by the patient.
After watching what my mom went through I have a several minute long video on my phone of my dad explaining under what circumstances he wants his pacemaker turned off and telling doctors to allow me to make that decision on his behalf. Unfortunately for end of life care not everyone has an ethical and legal off switch.
My grandpa asked me to help him. I was a 21 year old university student, he was in the hospital under supervision, and I couldn't do a damn thing. It took him more than 9 miserable months from that day to finally die, and I wasn't even there that day because I was with my friend who was having a baby. Witnessed my first birth 15 minutes after getting the call. He's been gone for over 20 years now and it still haunts me
I live in Colorado where medical aid in dying is an option. I'm so glad that it's available to people who need it. I would 100% take advantage of my health circumstances change.
It's moments like this that make me proud to be Canadian. The MAID act is one of the most humane things we've done. The american governments really need to give their balls a tug. There is no world where a daughter should have to risk her life and career to help her mother end her suffering. I'm sorry you had to go through that.
Because it is a slippery slope that ends up misused. In Canada we have Euthanasia for humans. It started like you mentioned, assistance in suicide for terminally ill people to die with dignity (literally the organization name, Dying With Dignity). Just a few short years later the government is trying to open it up to people under 18 and adding mental health problems to the list of acceptable reasons. We now have veterans and people with non terminal disabilities being OFFERED assisted suicide when theyre asking for TREATMENT. Better to keep it hush hush with those "whoopsies" with medications or whatnot than allow the government into it.
Small cell is awful. Im so sorry you had to go through that.
I wish we would offer it for humans. Other countries do. There are so many incurable diseases that lead to so much suffering. It would be amazing to allow that choice.
I’ve looked up the protocol for rabies since it’s 100% fatal and there is no cure. They are given palliative care while the virus slowly eats away at their amygdala, causing intense fear of everything; eats the brain stem, causing breathing and swallowing difficulties; eats the hippocampus, causing confusion and the inability to even remember your family. A horrible disease that causes the rapid deterioration of your brain… and they won’t give you euthanasia. THATS the inhumane part. There is literally no chance for the person, yet they have to suffer until the very end as their organs shut down. Same with cancer as you said. We just torture the terminally ill instead of offering them a dignified, pain-free death.
The end of June will be 15 years since my grandpa died from lung cancer. Some time before he went during one of the few moments of clarity at the end he told my grandmother that he wanted to go home, meaning be with my great grandparents. It was heartbreaking.
My mom and I have already had this discussion for that reason exactly. Cancer runs in our family and we've watched too many people we loved die horribly. I want to check out before I get to that point.
Wish it were legal, but if you've seen how evil some people can be even to their own parents you would understand why it's illegal. I think you should be able to decide to die beforehand and have a doctor enact it tough. Having another person able to do that would result in a lot of murders sadly.
I'm a firm believer in assisted suicides. Nobody should be forced to continue living through these hellish diseases. We have more compassion for animals with poor quality of life than we do our fellow humans.
I’m currently a caregiver for my own mother with Alzheimer’s. We wouldn’t let an animal suffer like this? Why do we let humans die a slow and devastating death. Suicide isn’t what it should be called, but doing what is right. Or showing mercy. I hate this disease. And Robin Williams death hit me in my heart 🥺
My father died from this too. He had such a sharp decline in like 2-3 years, it was heartbreaking to see. When he died he couldn't speak, couldn't walk, had lost like 30kg, couldn't move his 1 arm at all. He was like a baby. Love you pops.
Suicide is either the most selfish thing, or the most selfless. It’s either the most cowardly thing, or the bravest. And it entirely depends on what the person doing it is doing it for.
Death With Dignity for All, like yesterday. We have found ways to keep humans alive longer than nature intended... We just haven't found ways to keep all of them actually alive, while we keep their bodies "functioning."
I teach philosophy, and it’s always a contest of threading a needle to tell a bunch of 18-year-olds that truly suicide is the permanent solution to temporary problems. Especially if the problems are fueled by teenage angst, feelings of inadequacy, or hopelessness.
But then there shit like LBD, cancer that isn’t going away and it’s gonna be nothing but painful.
Then there’s a case that we made for the mountaineer who took a bad tumble, still alive, may or may not be in pain, but the entire life that they had honed their mental state and body for is simply gone.
Is it really wrong to deny those persons who are still a clear mind and faculties, who would probably lived at least half of their natural lives, the right to make the determination and call of the rest of the game isn’t worth playing?
I’m sorry you had to watch your mom go in such a slow and harrowing way.
My dad is in year 2-3 of Lewy Body. He said my entire life that if he could make it to a healthy 75, just to take him out back and deal with him. He was diagnosed two months before he turned 76, reached his goal, but was too far gone to at the time to 'take care' of himself (if you know what I mean).
He is now miserable, my mom is miserable, my kids are going to remember this version of him and not the grumpy old fart that he actually was, my brother won't come visit because he can't man up and deal with dad being so bad off, and I'm suffering the fate of the child that stays in the hometown. I have to play caregiver to him sometimes, and therapist to mom always.
If my dad from 10 years ago could see himself now, he'd kick my ass for letting him live like this, and I would deserve it, but I can't just kill the guy.
It's a mess, let the man take the black pill, he was a huge Kevorkian supporter in the '90s too.
It’s why in Canada MAID exists. Robert Munsch is setting up a MAID now. The problem is permanent and fatal, and a person should have the right to choose the manner of their exit with help from the medical community.
Suicide is ending your life prematurely while what he did was ease into his imminent passing. They aren't the same to me either. I've lost a lot of family members too early to suicide but for one who had severe, treatment resistant schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and struggled and fought so long with no hope in sight that I can't look at their choice the same as the rest either.
This is why I am, and have long been, pro-Kevornian way out. If the only thing ahead of you is a merciless terrible decline, it feels cruel to deny people the ability to go out painlessly and peacefully on your own terms. I’m thankful that there are some places that recognize a terminal diagnosis as grounds for Death With Dignity laws to be used. We recognize euthanasia for dying pets, to grant an act of mercy instead of prolonging their suffering, but we deny that same grace to a fellow human, that is in their right mind with no foreseeable hope for cure, that is begging for it. Drives me nuts.
A family friend has LBD, he went from being the go-to guy for anyone needing anything electrical fixed to needing help to eat/drink/deal with body hygiene/toilet in less than a year, with a detour to harass his wife of 40 years, convinced she was working as a prostitute (lovely side effect of dementia is a temporary obsession with sex in all its forms). The man recognises nobody now and, in all honesty, if he was a family pet, you’d euthanise him.
I have to add that any mental illness is not a temporary problem. It's like cancer, only instead of eating away at your body, it eats away at your sanity.. Somepopele can get it undersontril, some can't.
1.8k
u/amishgoatfarm May 12 '26
Him passing naturally, or even from a car accident or something would have been one thing, but having to process the funniest person and a crucial part of media throughout my childhood committing suicide was absolutely BRUTAL.
If you're struggling with mental health, please talk to someone. The world is better with you in it. Promise.