Is anyone here

Hello Devorah, I am also in a similar position and am planning my 'way out'. To cut a long and boring story short I have battled addiction and depression for the last 20 years, while I have overcome the majority of this which has totally overruled 20 yrs of my 'life', I am now suffering from another condition that has taken over my 'life' for the past 2 years and causing chronic pain (my too is not a life, just existing), which has affected my mobility so much I am basically a prisoner in my own home and feel totally cut off and isolated. Am just so sick and tired of fighting. It's been a long battle and I am so tired.

I have been planning and researching an exit for the last few months, as I want to make sure I do it right this time. I didn't realise there'd be so much planning involved and it really does alter your perspective, from finding a hotel/other place to do the deed to even little details like making sure my partner knows how to operate the DVD player when I'm gone, things feel so surreal. It sounds and feels crazy, but I don't know whether I'm getting used to it or if it's just the painkillers I'm addicted to that is altering my way of thinking.
And the guilt is really destroying me as well, that is what has stopped me in the past.
Anyway,just wanted you to know you are not on your own and I can empathise, I know how it feels to want that ending so much.
Good luck in your search and I do hope you find your peace.

Hello both of you, please know that anything you read from here on out is not meant to be insensitive, quite the opposite - please take the time to consider what I say;

My name is James, I am a young man who has struggled with the deaths of those around me for most of my life. A few years ago someone very close to me who was very sick decided to take her own life as her terminal illness got progressively worse. She convinced her friend to help her get to Switzerland (she wasn't very mobile by this stage), and without telling her family or me - she went over and got it done. Her friend told me she died peacefully, but was extremely regretful that all her loved ones weren't around her when she went (she knew none of us agreed with what she was doing). I was extremely angry for quite a while. I spent long hours on various forums arguing with and berating people on why any form of suicide is selfish, wrong and hurtful to everyone.

Recently my mind was changed. I attended a lecture of Philip Nitschke while I was at university, intending to tell him it was wrong as well. I met a nurse who throughout her career has been begged by people to help them end their pain, but she was never able to do it - due to medical and federal law in Australia. They both opened my eyes. I was the selfish one. I was the hurtful one. If someone is of sound mind - if there is no chance they will change their mind - if they are at peace with their life and their death, then they should be allowed to die with dignity.

After graduating from university not too long ago, I have become a journalist. Using my craft I want to help dissolve the fear people have of death and Euthanasia. And by so doing help change the laws. I want people to be able to die with dignity, peacefully and professionally assisted with their families around them.

Will you join me on this journey? I want to tell your story, I want to show people what it's like to be refused such a personal and peaceful mercy.
The article I will write won't be insensitive. It will be respectful and closely shaped with you. Please will you help me?

I am therefore researching and planning my exit. I haven't anybody who can assist me, and I am not able to get to Switzerland. I am therefore forced to do this on my own and have to make absolutely sure that I am doing it right. Is anyone else here in a similar position? >>

Sorry to hear about your plight. If it was me, I'd go to my garage, make sure the door was down, start the motor and go to sleep

“What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is WHAT WE DO.” John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)

I always presumed the carbon monoxide was tranquil, but heard many who try that cannot stand the nausea and something inside them makes them leave the car, possibly with brain damage

Automobile exhaust is not pure CO; there will be all kinds of nasty stuff such as smoke particles, unburnt fuel, moisture, sulphur dioxide, soot etc. Quite enough to make someone feel sick long before life is threatened.

The worst pain is still preferable to the best being dead. - Me.

Any number of things that can make being terminal more bearable. In this case law goes out the window and if you need drugs, get drugs.

Another thing to consider is your legacy. Write something for others to help understand what you're going through. Can't imagine anything worst than dying and having people go "Huh? Who died?"

I am a 72 y.o. female who is ready to go to Switzerland. I have reached the stage of life where I feel it is all downhill. I just can't be bothered to take care of myself or my surroundings. I get tired very easily. Everything is too much trouble. I do not want to go into a nursing home. I am a retired nurse and I know what those places are like. My whole life I have been depressed due to the things that have happened to me. I heard this summer about a non-terminally ill (ha that's a laugh-are we not all terminally ill?) 75 y.o. retired nurse who went to Switzerland and was allowed to end her life. That is my hope and my intention. I have twice tried to commit suicide on my own and, obviously, not been successful. This time I want to do it with safety and dignity. I am sure there are many others like me. Anyway, social security in its current format is unsustainable. I have fears about how the government will be able to cope with this. It will mean a diminution in living conditions for the poorer seniors. Cuts, cuts and more cuts. We seniors should think of the younger workers who are compelled to contribute more and more to people who live into their 80's and 90's and who have long ago exhausted the amount of money they paid into the fund. We are just in a giant Ponzi scheme. We seniors cost Medicare millions.

I do hope you found a solution that works for you. I have tried twice. It's not easy as you noted. I am going to try to get to Switzerland-there is a new program called Eternal Life which sounds promising. A 75 year old British woman was allowed to end her life there this summer. She had no terminal illness and no known health problems. Like me she was a retired nurse and had seen more than her share of death and dying. If she could do it I hope they will let me. Nobody knows the mental pain we suffer. It is every way as life destroying as physical pain. Fear of getting less and less able to take care of oneself and no family that can step in and help.

In every ending, theres a new beginning.
Survive, survive as you can...
Theres still life out there.

Cant think of anything to say except - Live while you can and hope to explore the unknown while you are gone from this life.

Hi James--

I am wondering if you ever wrote your article and if it is available on line?

~~The worst pain is still preferable to the best being dead. - Me. ~~

What kind of pain do you experience that brings you to this conclusion?

Are you under the impression that all pain can be relieved? Because that is incorrect if that is your assumption.

Must everyone follow your personal religious or moral beliefs? Or are other permitted their own religious and moral beliefs even if they differ with yours?

Hi Jelllybaby:

~~I am a 72 y.o. female who is ready to go to Switzerland. I have reached the stage of life where I feel it is all downhill. I just can't be bothered to take care of myself or my surroundings. I get tired very easily. Everything is too much trouble. I do not want to go into a nursing home. I am a retired nurse and I know what those places are like. My whole life I have been depressed due to the things that have happened to me. I heard this summer about a non-terminally ill (ha that's a laugh-are we not all terminally ill?) 75 y.o. retired nurse who went to Switzerland and was allowed to end her life. That is my hope and my intention. I have twice tried to commit suicide on my own and, obviously, not been successful. This time I want to do it with safety and dignity. I am sure there are many others like me. Anyway, social security in its current format is unsustainable. I have fears about how the government will be able to cope with this. It will mean a diminution in living conditions for the poorer seniors. Cuts, cuts and more cuts. We seniors should think of the younger workers who are compelled to contribute more and more to people who live into their 80's and 90's and who have long ago exhausted the amount of money they paid into the fund. We are just in a giant Ponzi scheme. We seniors cost Medicare millions.~~

Just wondering if you ever found your answers?

Given that you acknowledge you have depression, surely you know that depression gives you fatigue, makes you think everything is too much trouble, and makes you feel that suicide is the best solution. It can also make you feel helpless, like nothing will work, and that you're in a downward spiral. And this includes thinking that at age 72, you're one step away from a nursing home (when the reality is you could easily be closer to 2 decades from one, particularly if you can stay mobile). Right now, your depression is dressed up as concern for the next generation.

The next generation will be fine with you living.

I urge you to seek therapy from a competent mental health professional if you aren't already. And if you are seeing a therapist, then show them what you wrote here as I suspect you haven't told them.

And if you tried therapy and didn't like it, try it again with another therapist.

Mental health/depression is maddeningly inconsistent. One day a treatment works. The next, it doesn't. Or more likely it works for a decade and everything is essentially hunky-dory and then it stops working. Or your therapist retires or moves away and you get a new one you don't like as much.

None of those things mean that medical intervention doesn't work -- it does! It's more that it requires some patience and perseverance.

Like I said above, the next generation doesn't want you to kill yourself just so they can get an extra fraction of a penny in benefits.

2 years have passed since the last reply on 2nd Aug 2018. Stumbled upon this thread while 'researching' 'back pain'. Go figure.
After reading the 15 reply posts am now wondering if anyone has an update?
My only contribution to this thread is that I empathize with Devoran so much, as well as with murphys law, and jellybaby.
My story? Am nearly 80, suffered back pain for 16 years, degenerative disc disease, quite disabled, coping, just. Am reclusive and content with that. Not quite suicidal... yet.
Wanted to 'share' but remembered that old adage... "tell someone who cares" and that put the brakes on, for me. Who the heck 'cares'.