Photo by Thought Catalog: https://www.pexels.com/photo/purple-petaled-flowers-near-black-book-2228552/
This article was originally posted to my Medium here.
The voice in his head told Kevin Hines to jump. And when he did, he instantly regretted it.
Kevin Hines was famous for being one of the few to survive the Golden State Bridge jump. Hines jumped off the bridge in September of 2000. He now goes around trying to save people from suffering the same tragedy he went through.
Hines isn’t the only one. According to another friend on Medium, Ed Newman, “All 29 people who survived their suicide attempts off San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge have said they regretted their decision as soon as they jumped.”
So what does this have to do with Canada?
As written in The National Post, Canada will soon join some of the few countries allowing assisted suicide laws to apply to people with depression, bipolar disorder, personality disorders, schizophrenia, PTSD, and other mental illness. If The National Post isn’t enough for you, there is a story of it happening to a family here. The idea we could help people who are mentally ill to kill themselves, in my opinion, is a Crime Against Humanity, and here is why.
Harvard Research.
According to a Harvard Report, 9/10 people who attempt suicide do not attempt suicide again. They go on to say this is a well-established statistic in suicidology literature.
Most people who die by suicide in the U.S. did not make a previous attempt. Prevention efforts that focus only on those who attempt suicide will miss the majority of completers. An international review of psychological autopsy studies found that approximately 40% of those dying by suicide had previously attempted (Cavanagh 2003). The proportion was lower (25–33%) among studies of youth suicide in the U.S. (Brent 1993, Shaffer 1996). A history of previous attempts is lower among those dying by firearm suicide and higher among those dying by overdose (NVISS data).
Still, history of suicide attempt is one of the strongest risk factors for suicide. 5% to 11% of hospital-treated attempters do go on to complete suicide, a far higher proportion than among the general public where annual suicide rates are about 1 in 10,000.
Harvard says this statistic is in line with the observation that suicidal crises are often short-lived, even if underlying chronic risk factors cause these crises.
We will never know how many more other people regret jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge because they are all dead. People who are depressed or have a mental illness do not think clearly when attempting suicide, so if suicide is an irrational emotion and a solution to a temporary problem. Why do governments encourage people to get assisted suicide in the world?
I know it’s hard to believe, but even the AP reports that it is happening. The AP reports even say Canada is pushing to allow mentally ill minors to get this final life-ending treatment.
And if previous Canadian laws are anything to go off of, like transgender laws, we might see children being able to get this treatment without parental consent. As a matter of fact, it’s already trying to be pushed.
The article I linked earlier, Scheduled to Die: The Rise of Canada’s Assisted Suicide Program, says that the “Mature Minor Doctrine” allows children deemed sufficiently mature to make their own treatment decisions. Again read it here. All you have to do to find the area I’m talking about is press control F on your keyboard and type in “child.” The government also seems never to state what counts as a mature child. Which if children can’t consent to sex, they can’t consent to death either.
My Mental Health Journey
I have been mentally ill almost my entire life. I take a lot of meds right now to be in a stable mood at the expense of being tired most of the time. I am seeking aid from ECT treatment, a type of electroshock therapy to help with major depression that can’t be solved by other means anymore. Of course, I would have to be approved for such experimental treatment. But after all the suffering and hardship I’ve experienced in life. Even when now, I say, thinking in my head that I’ve suffered enough and want to give up. I am happy to be alive.
There is only one acceptable option to choose in life: to choose to live. You must always choose life. Because life is worth living, I’ve battled suicidal tendencies enough to know that there is always light at the end of the tunnel. All it takes sometimes is a change in perspective.
I was sent to a treatment center for my mental illness. And even though that center was full of weird sexual abuse stories and some staffers were downright horrible, I was able to overcome my suicidal idealizations. Maybe it was done the hard and unhealthy way for this reason or that. But I still learned that you couldn’t give up that easily for yourself and your family.
Conclusion
The new laws Canada is passing are a slap in the face to me and everyone who has battled mental illness and won or is still suffering. How dare you offer someone to illegally end their life at a doctor’s appointment? If I could go to a doctor without my parent’s consent to die, I might have done it. And that thought horrifies me that I might have done that before I could experience the things life offered me. I will not stand for such laws if they enter the US. I will be out on the streets fighting for people to give their own life a second chance. Share the story if you think that people deserve to live.