2023-04-24 10:02:19
24 apr Experience stories | Young people are dying
At GGZ.nl we like to share stories and visions of experience experts in mental health care. With this we hope to make various topics more discussable, to create more openness about mental health and to stimulate the sharing of experiences.
Inger has experiential knowledge in the field of (C)PTSD, eating disorders, depression and suicide. At the moment she works as an individual counselor in youth care and is completing her training as a social worker. She also provides information about mental health at secondary schools, colleges and universities, among others. Inger regularly writes a column for GGZ.nl about her experiences with mental disorders, the recovery process and about her experiences in the care sector.
Young people are dying
Young people are dying. According to the doctors, nurses and psychologists, they are too complex, they have been treated out.
In 2021, about 7500 people (annual report of the regional euthanasia review committee) received help in ending their lives. 175 people received this because of unbearable suffering due to psychological complaints. A number that may not be too bad compared to the 7500 in total, but which I still find shockingly high. I now personally know 5 young women who have been able to find peace thanks to euthanasia. And I know I’m going to lose three more friends in the next year, if they persist in waiting for their turn.
Does this sound bizarre to you? Young women on a waiting list to die? It is reality and the path they follow is not entirely unusual within ‘complex’ psychiatry. I have become hardened by the many suicides in my area, and a phone call that a friend has registered for a euthanasia program no longer surprises me. I accept it all resignedly, listen to their story as my tears stream down my cheeks and then my life moves on.
Two years ago I was also at the beginning of this journey. I had no hope. After a 1.5 year hospitalization – in the clinic known as the place for people who are dislocated from any other treatment – where nothing but deterioration took place, I didn’t see what I had left to fight for. I wanted to live, I believed that there was someone in the world who could help me process my traumas. But no one dared. My eating disorder was too aggressive, my coping too destructive. The risk that I would end up in a dissociation and cause myself irreversible damage was too great. I had undergone every symptom-oriented treatment and it didn’t help. Did my eating disorder improve? Then my dissociations and destructive behaviors increased. If I worked on a bit of a personality problem, my legs and eyes would fail (conversion). I was treated.
Once again I ended up in a tug-of-war between various mental health departments and agencies. Because who was responsible for me now? Who would guide me? What were the purposes by which the help I received was justified to the insurer? Had I received enough treatments to qualify for euthanasia? Did I qualify for euthanasia at all? After all, I didn’t want to die, I just wanted to stop suffering unbearably.
My experience in this is personal and I certainly don’t want to project my story onto just anyone. Some people simply cannot experience happiness or joy anymore. However, when finally that one counselor came who was willing to take the risk of treating me for the cause of all my problems, I had quality of life again in the foreseeable future and within a short time I actually had a function and role in the health care system again. society. Although it was still small.
When friends call me crying or desperate to indicate that they can no longer do it and want euthanasia, then I understand their feeling. At the same time it makes me angry. Thinking in boxes, not wanting to take risks and the ‘one size fits all’ system, largely imposed by the insurers, does not work for this target group. The target group that has already tried every standard treatment.
Young people are dying. Not because they are too complex or untreatable, but because we have not yet found the right entrance. And if we find these, help is not always possible within the current healthcare systems. Young people are dying, this makes me sad and angry because, without wanting to hurt hard-working aid workers, I still see opportunities if we free up time, money and people for this. These young people deserve this! They have a future, a backpack full of life experience and, above all, often a unique outlook on life.
*Editor’s note: Do you have thoughts about suicide, do you need help or are you worried about a loved one? Contact 113 Suicide Prevention (anonymously) via chat, or call 113 or the free number 0800-0113. The helpline is open 24/7. *
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