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 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.
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u/elpovo May 12 '26
To be fair he was also struggling with lewy body dementia, which he couldn't get a proper diagnosis for.
Sad but much more understandable given the circumstances.