I think this relates back to autonomy too, the people that argue that it shouldn’t be legalised have never been in your situation, nor have I, and why ‘we’ should get to decide what you do with your life, or have the arrogance to think ‘we’ know better than you, I don’t know. There’s also a clear distinction between clinical depression and situational depression (at least according to my psychiatrist that’s arguing with my GP about it), yours currently being situational. The way it seems to be treated in your application simplifies the mental illness into something it’s not, no amount of CBT, SSRIs or psychotherapy is going to give you your old life back, and it would be weirder if you weren’t depressed with how things are going.
I obviously don’t want you to die, but I also don’t think it’s right to force you to live in misery either because some people that have never even been in contact with someone like you have decided that you can’t choose what to do with your own body. I am glad to hear that you’re back teaching though, even though I’m sure it’s a pain to get to KCL and around the strand.
I applaud everything you have written here. I don't understand the squeamishness surrounding suicide. It would be my worst nightmare to find my life unacceptable and yet be unable to end it. It is bordering on comical that the DDA aims, quite rightly, to remove any restriction of choice that a person's disability might impose on them, but not when it comes to suicide. It's obscene.
Thanks for the link to the Kathleen Stock piece. I thought her book 'Material girls' was fantastic but this just made me angry. I agree totally that opponents of assisted dying should have to look you (or Noel Conway or Terry Pratchett or anyone actually staring into their own particular abyss) in the eye, or preferably live with you for a week, and then talk.
Am I wrong to think that if we as a society can stomach the difficult realities of abortion, we ought somehow to be able to get our heads round personal choice in dying? I have always supported abortion on demand, simply because the alternative, forcing a woman to give birth against her will, is unthinkable. Forcing a person to live against their will seems just as clearly wrong.
My heart aches for all that you have lost, Paul. I would hope that you will find some joy again, because a life without any joy at all is so hard. You're a young man and I would hope you will find a way to live, but I would also sit alongside you in support of your right to be the only person who can determine if what is available to you is acceptable or not.
People want people to stay alive, they imagine that surely *something* good will come in the future, even if not the desired things. It has something in common with a very old school Tory view of giving charity rather than benefits - “I have comforted the good little poors” type of thing, rather than instituting the systemic change that would actually help. I have more time for the slippery slope argument than you on the basis that an increasingly poor and ageing society will inevitably systemically start to cut corners. But I also think a big unexamined part of the against argument is the self-protective denial of harsh realities. I think what people imagine is a fond hazy scene of the person experiencing something in some way comforting or mollifying before - at the very least - some later and more settled end. Our sense of narrative revolts against the idea of a situation as irretrievably painful and awful, something one never spiritually comes to terms with, and then death cuts it off. If that can happen to someone else it can happen to any of us, and that’s too terrifying to have in one’s headspace. Of course people are sort of literally right, in that it’s impossible nothing good could ever happen to for example you again, it’s just the trade-offs. I don’t want you to die, but I understand what you say.
Something that’s not in that conversation at all that I’ve seen is spiritual help for the would-be-dead, such that you get to that place and experience thoughts that make you able to go into it from a position of strength and not despair. We don’t like to think about that because again psychological and emotional help is usually supposed to make people better. But MacMillan etc have death doulas, I imagine it’s a branch of therapy, and so on. It’s a normal though hidden part of life a lot of people will have to wrestle with at some point. If that was in the conversation, such that we didn’t only see death as the miserable, unspeakable choice, I think it might genuinely be stripped down to its purported arguments about the slippery slope and so on, rather than being about unvoiced fear.
Funnily enough I've written an article defending assisted dying recently. I think you could possible make the stronger point that you're being tortured, (instead of just trapped) given torture is the infliction of severe suffering, and, insofar as the state stops you from having yourself killed, they cause this severe suffering. It's analogous to a Japanese solider finding a fat and disabled man on a tiny sprout of bamboo, which the fat and disabled man can't get off, shoving everyone who tries to help him off of it away, ensuring it very, very painfully grows up through him. I suppose the debate concerns whether this is a proper understanding of infliction.
The whole point about voluntariness is suspect given few people would apply such a high standard of it elsewhere, which, to my mind, points to paternalism being at the root of the prohibition. Even if some people would be involuntarily killed were assisted dying legalised, I think the fact torture is arguably on the other side of the moral balancing act points towards the liberal answer being right.
On killing yourself, are you sure there's no possible way to do that to ensure no criminal liability on the part of the helper? Maybe going abroad to a very poor country with gun ownership and paying someone to put you down would work? Drown yourself in a bath? I imagine there must be a way to create a suitably accidental looking death. I am aware this all sounds crass, but I think this is worth pursuing more given your very settled position (I assume you've thought about it already).
Have you ever taken psilocybin? They can help new pathways form in your mind enabling new perspectives and understanding. I’m no expert but just a thought.
One more thing I totally disagree with Kathleen Stock about then. A strong through line with her of disregarding the autonomy and dignity of others, and seeking to impose her views about what’s best, for our own good..
She doesn't try to 'impose her views' on anyone at all. She merely lobbies for all of us to be allowed to have our own views, and to be able to express those views freely. We are moving towards losing the power of free speech in this country, and when that power is lost we will be living in a fascist society.
Paul, while I don’t underestimate the difficulties you are faced with, I do
see that things have improved in some areas, with great effort on your part, I can see that. I am hopeful, especially with AI, that there will be breakthroughs that will help you. take care, Paul.
Your honesty and forthrightness here is jolting but in a way I appreciate.
Just wondering, have you dug into some of the legislative and judicial testimony on the record for this debate about assistance in dying for mental health conditions in Canada? My understanding is that competence and mental wellness even though potentially connected are two distinct questions.
I believe that I have read all of your posts but I have never seen any mention of the importance of a Personal Directive, Living Will or DNR. I'm not sure what the legal jargon for this is in the UK. You have written a few times about your feeling as though you had no choice in being "saved". A legal document coupled with frank discussions with family can help. Obviously young, fit people don't think about situations like yours happening. Anyone engaging in a dangerous hobby might do well to consider this. You may be in a good position to promote this for others. I hope you find peace and comfort in 2025.
I have always said that I reserve the right to choose to end my life however I see fit, when I deem it no longer worth living. If I were in your situation, I know I would feel exactly as you do. I’m so sorry that you are “trapped”. I wish your situation was not what it is. Thinking of you and supporting you from America.
I share your same passion for the outdoors, in dark times hiking and camping in the mountains has been my place of peace and joy and can only imagine the heartbreak of knowing you are cut out from the life you had and cherished. I understand your desire to take control over your life and happiness and the feeling your life has become worthless to you. Hope might be something that kills you or saves you, and you can only know deep inside what your soul wants, if it's urging you to live this life you've been given to the fullest, or reject what you feel as indignities you are being subjected to everyday. I have gone through cancer, and can understand that pain (emotional and physical) can take you to places where death isn't the scariest prospect. Whatever you wish to do, fight to make it happen as hard as you can. Medicine advancements have taken us to a point where we might be kept alive but never cured, opening up extreme predicaments for patients that challenge the notion of what doing no harm actually means.
Obviously an unsolicited comment from someone with zero experience of your situation... but my tupenny'worth would be to wonder if your PPE/journo/MP intern experience could be put to good use in the political campaigning field? I say that because - to me in my ignorance at least - that would be a bit more of a thrill than the academia stuff, and it sounds like you are missing thrills at the moment... please don't hit me : O~
'I want it to stop' has been a regular thought since last years ICU visit. Still here and still get those thoughts even thoguh now has job etc and things do seem objectively better. Whilst deeply diving into my Buddhism in order to keep going, it has worked to a greater degree, there are still those 'I want it to stop moments so sending hugs as it sucks.
I think this relates back to autonomy too, the people that argue that it shouldn’t be legalised have never been in your situation, nor have I, and why ‘we’ should get to decide what you do with your life, or have the arrogance to think ‘we’ know better than you, I don’t know. There’s also a clear distinction between clinical depression and situational depression (at least according to my psychiatrist that’s arguing with my GP about it), yours currently being situational. The way it seems to be treated in your application simplifies the mental illness into something it’s not, no amount of CBT, SSRIs or psychotherapy is going to give you your old life back, and it would be weirder if you weren’t depressed with how things are going.
I obviously don’t want you to die, but I also don’t think it’s right to force you to live in misery either because some people that have never even been in contact with someone like you have decided that you can’t choose what to do with your own body. I am glad to hear that you’re back teaching though, even though I’m sure it’s a pain to get to KCL and around the strand.
Hi Paul
I applaud everything you have written here. I don't understand the squeamishness surrounding suicide. It would be my worst nightmare to find my life unacceptable and yet be unable to end it. It is bordering on comical that the DDA aims, quite rightly, to remove any restriction of choice that a person's disability might impose on them, but not when it comes to suicide. It's obscene.
Thanks for the link to the Kathleen Stock piece. I thought her book 'Material girls' was fantastic but this just made me angry. I agree totally that opponents of assisted dying should have to look you (or Noel Conway or Terry Pratchett or anyone actually staring into their own particular abyss) in the eye, or preferably live with you for a week, and then talk.
Am I wrong to think that if we as a society can stomach the difficult realities of abortion, we ought somehow to be able to get our heads round personal choice in dying? I have always supported abortion on demand, simply because the alternative, forcing a woman to give birth against her will, is unthinkable. Forcing a person to live against their will seems just as clearly wrong.
My heart aches for all that you have lost, Paul. I would hope that you will find some joy again, because a life without any joy at all is so hard. You're a young man and I would hope you will find a way to live, but I would also sit alongside you in support of your right to be the only person who can determine if what is available to you is acceptable or not.
It's 9.30pm. I hope you have a peaceful night.
Bro just survive. In a few years ( maybe 5, maybe 10 worst case scenario 20) they will cure this condition. And maybe aging as well.
You are great guy, keep on living!
People want people to stay alive, they imagine that surely *something* good will come in the future, even if not the desired things. It has something in common with a very old school Tory view of giving charity rather than benefits - “I have comforted the good little poors” type of thing, rather than instituting the systemic change that would actually help. I have more time for the slippery slope argument than you on the basis that an increasingly poor and ageing society will inevitably systemically start to cut corners. But I also think a big unexamined part of the against argument is the self-protective denial of harsh realities. I think what people imagine is a fond hazy scene of the person experiencing something in some way comforting or mollifying before - at the very least - some later and more settled end. Our sense of narrative revolts against the idea of a situation as irretrievably painful and awful, something one never spiritually comes to terms with, and then death cuts it off. If that can happen to someone else it can happen to any of us, and that’s too terrifying to have in one’s headspace. Of course people are sort of literally right, in that it’s impossible nothing good could ever happen to for example you again, it’s just the trade-offs. I don’t want you to die, but I understand what you say.
Something that’s not in that conversation at all that I’ve seen is spiritual help for the would-be-dead, such that you get to that place and experience thoughts that make you able to go into it from a position of strength and not despair. We don’t like to think about that because again psychological and emotional help is usually supposed to make people better. But MacMillan etc have death doulas, I imagine it’s a branch of therapy, and so on. It’s a normal though hidden part of life a lot of people will have to wrestle with at some point. If that was in the conversation, such that we didn’t only see death as the miserable, unspeakable choice, I think it might genuinely be stripped down to its purported arguments about the slippery slope and so on, rather than being about unvoiced fear.
I just want to send my love. Useless but very sincere.
Funnily enough I've written an article defending assisted dying recently. I think you could possible make the stronger point that you're being tortured, (instead of just trapped) given torture is the infliction of severe suffering, and, insofar as the state stops you from having yourself killed, they cause this severe suffering. It's analogous to a Japanese solider finding a fat and disabled man on a tiny sprout of bamboo, which the fat and disabled man can't get off, shoving everyone who tries to help him off of it away, ensuring it very, very painfully grows up through him. I suppose the debate concerns whether this is a proper understanding of infliction.
The whole point about voluntariness is suspect given few people would apply such a high standard of it elsewhere, which, to my mind, points to paternalism being at the root of the prohibition. Even if some people would be involuntarily killed were assisted dying legalised, I think the fact torture is arguably on the other side of the moral balancing act points towards the liberal answer being right.
On killing yourself, are you sure there's no possible way to do that to ensure no criminal liability on the part of the helper? Maybe going abroad to a very poor country with gun ownership and paying someone to put you down would work? Drown yourself in a bath? I imagine there must be a way to create a suitably accidental looking death. I am aware this all sounds crass, but I think this is worth pursuing more given your very settled position (I assume you've thought about it already).
Have you ever taken psilocybin? They can help new pathways form in your mind enabling new perspectives and understanding. I’m no expert but just a thought.
Yes - this is a brilliant idea if a friend would agree to help him get and take this.
One more thing I totally disagree with Kathleen Stock about then. A strong through line with her of disregarding the autonomy and dignity of others, and seeking to impose her views about what’s best, for our own good..
She doesn't try to 'impose her views' on anyone at all. She merely lobbies for all of us to be allowed to have our own views, and to be able to express those views freely. We are moving towards losing the power of free speech in this country, and when that power is lost we will be living in a fascist society.
She’s free to speak - I’m free to disagree and to say so. The suffering of people whose rights she wants to take away is immense.
Paul, while I don’t underestimate the difficulties you are faced with, I do
see that things have improved in some areas, with great effort on your part, I can see that. I am hopeful, especially with AI, that there will be breakthroughs that will help you. take care, Paul.
Your honesty and forthrightness here is jolting but in a way I appreciate.
Just wondering, have you dug into some of the legislative and judicial testimony on the record for this debate about assistance in dying for mental health conditions in Canada? My understanding is that competence and mental wellness even though potentially connected are two distinct questions.
Now that you are in this mess, you may as well clear this one up: Are ears truly erogenous?
I believe that I have read all of your posts but I have never seen any mention of the importance of a Personal Directive, Living Will or DNR. I'm not sure what the legal jargon for this is in the UK. You have written a few times about your feeling as though you had no choice in being "saved". A legal document coupled with frank discussions with family can help. Obviously young, fit people don't think about situations like yours happening. Anyone engaging in a dangerous hobby might do well to consider this. You may be in a good position to promote this for others. I hope you find peace and comfort in 2025.
I have always said that I reserve the right to choose to end my life however I see fit, when I deem it no longer worth living. If I were in your situation, I know I would feel exactly as you do. I’m so sorry that you are “trapped”. I wish your situation was not what it is. Thinking of you and supporting you from America.
I share your same passion for the outdoors, in dark times hiking and camping in the mountains has been my place of peace and joy and can only imagine the heartbreak of knowing you are cut out from the life you had and cherished. I understand your desire to take control over your life and happiness and the feeling your life has become worthless to you. Hope might be something that kills you or saves you, and you can only know deep inside what your soul wants, if it's urging you to live this life you've been given to the fullest, or reject what you feel as indignities you are being subjected to everyday. I have gone through cancer, and can understand that pain (emotional and physical) can take you to places where death isn't the scariest prospect. Whatever you wish to do, fight to make it happen as hard as you can. Medicine advancements have taken us to a point where we might be kept alive but never cured, opening up extreme predicaments for patients that challenge the notion of what doing no harm actually means.
Obviously an unsolicited comment from someone with zero experience of your situation... but my tupenny'worth would be to wonder if your PPE/journo/MP intern experience could be put to good use in the political campaigning field? I say that because - to me in my ignorance at least - that would be a bit more of a thrill than the academia stuff, and it sounds like you are missing thrills at the moment... please don't hit me : O~
'I want it to stop' has been a regular thought since last years ICU visit. Still here and still get those thoughts even thoguh now has job etc and things do seem objectively better. Whilst deeply diving into my Buddhism in order to keep going, it has worked to a greater degree, there are still those 'I want it to stop moments so sending hugs as it sucks.