In some earlier posts I’ve sketched the objectives which I perceive are necessary for a decent suicide system.
I think the prong that most people will have trouble with is the legalisation of assisted suicide. It is by far the most important thing to me and there are reasons other than personal interest.
Some suicidal people tell someone when they’re intending to kill themselves, even if it’s a stranger like the Samaritans. Others don’t though I’m certain they’d want to talk to someone, to hear a human voice and have one last conversation (that doesn’t have to be anything about suicide).
As I’ve explained earlier, most actively suicidal people go to their death alone. They hide their intent from everyone and when the suicide happens those who care for them are shocked and unprepared. If no suicide note is left it’s hard to understand why someone killed themselves.
These are processes I’ve gained insight into through personal experience. The current suicide system is just not suitable for people like me and that’s what’s behind Angel of the Abyss and the assisted suicide pathway.
How long should torture be allowed to go on for?
The perfect suicide system in terms of free will and liberty is one where a person can be killed or kill themselves as soon as they’re ready to die. Perhaps this might be possible for individuals who’ve completed suicide training (prong 3) but I think an assisted suicide pathway is also necessary.
The reason I believe in a pathway which delays an assisted suicide is because there’s such a thing as regrettable suicide. This is when someone kills themselves but would regret doing so later on. This is where the current direction of suicide is useful but, as I’ve written about in previous posts, it is a curse for those who would not regret dying.
The length of this delay is very hard to define. A few years ago I thought a suicidal person would have to wait years to get an assisted suicide. This is terrible and defeats the point. Years are too long because it’s torture to live for years while wanting to die. It also means people won’t engage with the pathway and, instead, do it themselves.
I thought the abortion time limit would be an indicator. Doctors kill a potential life because a woman shouldn’t have to bear a pregnancy for a child she doesn’t want whereas suicide is an adult choosing their death. I’m not sure this is the right way to determine the length of delay for assisted suicide.
In the end I’m going to choose 2 lengths of time arbitrarily and every day’s worth of unwanted life is a crime because it forces someone to endure torture.
I think 6 weeks (42 days) is the acceptable length of torture for a suicide virgin to wait for their deaths. This consists of a 5 week period and a one week period. A week (7 days) is the waiting period for a suicide veteran. The pathway has two parts, a 5 week process for suicide virgins and a 1 week process for virgins and veterans before they die.
These limits have been plucked out of the air. They can be challenged and I think they should be shorter. I can’t abide torture. 6 weeks wait could be too much pain for some people. The alternative given the hypothetical third prong of training could be for everyone to define their own torture limits.
Individuals could also decide in advance what support they’d need or accept if they became suicidal.
What happens during the assisted suicide delay period has to be the best that can be offered to resolve suicidal thoughts.
5 weeks is long enough for a chemical cocktail to work if the individual chooses the drug route. There are illegal drugs which could offer breakthroughs quickly.
Undoubtedly there would be talking options. I have my own survival belief system – in service of a dream – but it doesn’t work. My death need is very high.
The other aspect is resolving the trigger factor if there is an obvious trigger. One of the processes which leads to suicidal ideation is the ‘death of a thousand cuts’ that whittles away a person’s will to live so sometimes there’s not a single identifiable causal event.
The key point is about action to resolve the situation. This point is quite a shift in thinking but it’s based on evidence. Suicidal ideation is often triggered by a negative state change. It’s not being poor but becoming poor; it’s not about being single but becoming single; it’s not about unemployment but becoming unemployed. This is not true of all suicidal ideation but these are common situations which create suicide virgins.
The current way of thinking is centred around being resilient to these factors. They happen and they cause suicidal thoughts but rather than resolving the cause by any means necessary the current method seeks to deal with the symptoms. There’s nothing wrong with that if that’s what a suicidal wants but without the option of addressing the cause the system remains useless and the established triggers continue without being addressed.
I italicised the words ‘by any means necessary’ because that’s the attitude to investment in the pathway which is demanded. The pathway is non-judgemental except in the aspect that it is trying to save a life. A lot of good can be achieved in 5 weeks which can change an awful situation. The 1 week period has even higher need for investment.
What’s a life worth? The real answer will show itself in the funding for the pathway between decision and death.
There have been significant investment and social change in the current suicide prevention system but my belief is the Angel of the Abyss proposal is the next-generation suicide system.
It’s greatest strength is that it’s a pathway I would enter. Currently I am uninterested in what the primitive mental health system although I’ve started taking antidepressants so I’ll be nicer and normal. I don’t take meds to change my suicidal thoughts and I doubt they could. When I become actively suicidal I don’t tell anyone because I don’t want to be told not to do it.
I’d put up with the crap of small minds trying to force me to live because it suits them if, at the end of the week, I could say goodbye to them then die.
I want to die and it is inhumane to ask me to live even a week more than I want to.
We do big ideas 