Reply #5: When I read posts like this, I always get the feeling that the

[Ladyhawk]

people discussing suicide don't really "get it," you know? Have you been there? Have you suffered for YEARS with severe treatment-resistant depression? Have you had shock treatments? Do you understand what it's like to NEVER feel quite right for years and years and years and years???? Do you know what it's like when your best emotion is relief???? Do you know what it feels like to watch as the remissions grow farther and farther apart while the severity of the depression increases with each relapse????

No? Then maybe you should stop and think before pontificating on the "wrongness" of suicide.

"Suicide is always a wrong choice made by someone who's lost the ability to make the right choice."

Bullshit. There are times when suicide is a viable option. There should be doctor-assisted suicide for physical terminal illness. That much is certain.

I'm wondering if there should be assisted suicide for patients with chronic illnesses that will never get better. I've got a bunch of them: diabetes; degenerative disc disease; severe, treatment-resistant depression. When these become too much to bear, I believe a person has the right to take his or her own life. After all, a person's life is all they really have.

You'd better believe I hang on like a son-of-a-bitch. I investigate every new procedure, every new medication. I plod through. I stick with it, day after day with almost zero help. I face it all alone. Alone I will decide when it's too much. The only thing I have control of is how much suffering I can take. But I will continue as long as I can.

But...I'm tired of people telling severely depressed patients to "call someone" or "get in touch with a counselor"...blah, blah, blah. Calling someone doesn't do shit. Outpatient care isn't that great and inpatient care is abominable.

The platitudes are oh-so-old. I don't mean to offend, but Sweet Jesus, the platitudes are SO OLD, twenty years old. And I'm tired of hearing them.