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 Considering suicide: When you just can't face another day
Living with a chronic illness and the knowledge that you are dying
is hard to do. You may feel cheated, betrayed by your own body and
the world. You some-times feel that your doctor is just not doing
enough, or that a cure should still be possible. Being treated for
serious illness can be expensive, uncomfortable, and disheartening.
Being sick requires many sacrifices and changes. Often, you have to
ask others to do things you once did for yourself. Some days, you
may feel so full of despair that the idea of just dying now seems
like a reasonable alternative. In fact, attempts at suicide are often
tied to clinical depression, a disease that makes people feel sad,
unworthy, guilty, and overwhelmed. Depression is not the same as feeling
sad: it is having no positive or hopeful feelings and often just no
energy to care.
Many dying people who focus on suicide are depressed. Many others
have alcohol and drug abuse problems. Many older people who commit
suicide not only are depressed but suffer from long-term physical
disabilities as well. Still others are depressed because of medication
they take to treat diseases (such as hypertension). Most of the
depression that leads patients to consider suicide can be treated
effectively with medication and therapy. Most dying people are not
depressed, and most who are depressed can be helped (often within
days or a few weeks).
Being depressed is like wearing blinders or trying to read in the
dark. Your perspective is just not what it should be. You may not
even be able to remember times when you were happy and felt that
life was worth living. You may feel that you have been depressed
for years. It is certainly a time when the future seems irrelevant
and bleak.
Many health care professionals can diagnose and treat depression,
though you should know that depression is often overlooked. It can
help for you to ask: "Is this depression that makes me feel
so low?" Your doctor should talk to you about your symptoms
and find a treatment. You can also get help by calling a local or
national suicide prevention hotline or finding a community mental
health center. These hotlines offer confidential help from trained
and friendly volunteers who will listen to your troubles and lead
you to resources. By asking for help, you open the door to support
and hope. Getting help for depression can give you time to think
about your life more clearly. Often you will come up with adequate
options for the fear and loss of control you feel.
Your doctor might recommend that you join a support group, such
as a breast cancer or stroke group, or even a depression or "12-step
program" in your community. Talking to others who share your
experience and concerns can take a weight off your mind. Sharing
your feelings - and just being with other human beings - is a powerful
way to heal.
You may find that you are not, in fact, depressed, and you may
continue to feel that dying is just taking too long. If so, you
should consider not only the other issues discussed in the rest
of this chapter, but also the possibilities of hastening death by
stopping treatments. Ordinarily, people who are very sick can stop
a medication, can forgo artificial nutrition and hydration, and
can accept sedating levels of drugs. These are not so definitive,
or confrontative, as suicide or euthanasia, and they are usually
fairly effective in avoiding prolonged dying. Forgoing
Medical Treatment
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