The last decision

I’ve been writing this post forever. By the time you read it, I most likely won’t be around. I am publishing this post with timing. Yes, it is a concern for me to write about why I go the way I go. 

I know that this is an ambivalent topic. Many would like to hear nothing at all, preferably about the whole topic. Religion also plays a role. For many patients, however, assisted suicide is a topic, and also an option. Death and dying in general is a taboo, and many push the topic far away from themselves. There are many reasons why this is rejected. I ask for tolerance here, from both parties. But it is about time that death, dying and euthanasia are de-tabooized.

For us, the topic of death and dying, suddenly not so far away, and becomes a daily thought. Often not even expressed. That we all must die one day, is known to us all, but as long as we are young, healthy, and stand in juices of our lives, this fact is gladly faded out. We have all lost contact with close people, or had conflicts, because healthy people can not cope with the fact that we have an incurable disease, that we will die soon. One is reluctantly confronted with death.

At some point, this topic is part of life. 

For me, the first confrontation with death was the day of my diagnosis. My life stopped on that day. I wept and mourned it, and at some point just acted matter-of-factly, shutting out the emotions as best I could. Soon my state worsened, and there was no way to walk away from that thought. It was clear to me pretty much at the beginning that I didn’t want to witness this, my body failing.

In this thing we are different, it has a lot to do with who we gets the sense of life, from where. Many are very attached to their partner, children, family, do not want to leave them alone or for many other reasons. I have no family of my own and no children, I have never dedicated my life to others, so this decision always depended on me alone.

For a long time I thought that in order to end my life in a self-determined way, I would have to travel abroad. Now, since a few years accompanied suicide is also possible in Germany, many things are still quite confusing and not yet well developed. In the meantime I know several people personally who have gone this way. There is a lot of information on the Internet.

I am not interested in giving an introduction on how to end one’s own life if one is interested. My point is to deal with why I made this decision and what is bothering me. First of all, of course it’s unfortunate that it had to happen this way. I would have liked to live a while longer. I love life, but it looks like life doesn’t love me. But I must say that the diagnosis, and the realization of what a terrible disease it is, was the bigger shock, than the decision to die. Because life was over with the diagnosis. That’s when you stopped living as you knew. Some things are possible, and one finds ways and possibilities how to cope. It’s all certainly possible in some way, but it’s not an option for all of us. I want my life back, not a copy of it. As an example, I want to drive myself and not take a cab to get from A to B. I don’t want that. We are all different.

So I decided to go in a self-determined way and with dignity. But this is my decision, and everyone can make this decision for himself/herself. Staying there and fighting for a little bit of life is not an option for me.

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