Earlier quoted context omitted.
One way to think about it is via the concept of body autonomy/sovereignty: your life is in your hands. IMHO dignified peaceful suicide should be a right granted to all free individuals. If one is free to live, why is one not free to die? But that is too radical of an idea, and upsets all sorts of people (especially the money men) Sometimes opting out is the only rational choice. If there is no support in society for…
Suicides do not just happen due to being in extreme, incurable pain. People commit suicides due to emotions which seem powerful immediately(failure in love life, academics, career etc.) but would not seem as such a big deal if they were to look back on it afterwards either due to the passing of time or due to finding something else which made life worthwhile. This also is the problem with the autonomy argument - this…
Source: I am a man who has, and is, "falling through the cracks" as a child abuse victim with multiple disabilities, no hot job skills, and a marginalized identity.
My life is slipping away and I'm almost 40. I am an extremely suboptimal individual as far as capitalism is concerned. The passage of time has only cemented this very real and very grim outlook.
The "powerful state officials" are already doing what you fear they might do, and have been doing it for longer than I've been alive. They do it with prisons or under terms like "austerity" of "welfare queens" or "dole moochers"
Disabled people are treated like garbage. Look to the USA or UK for immediate examples.
"Aktion T4" never went away, it just got privatized.
There is no support or viable path forward for people like me, short of going on Social Security Disability and living in basically a slum if I'm lucky. Honestly If something like MAID was available, I would absolutely take it.
No, I am not irrational or acutely suicidal. No, I do not need some hotline. My upbringing and disability has taught me exactly how society views me over the course of decades. No, touching grass isn't going to solve it.
I have a partner and a job (for now). Partner understands what I'm going through, and is also marginalized and partially disabled, in a dead-end job, also circling the drain.
I was writing about myself and others I know in the same boat.
Go talk to some disabled people and otherwise marginalized people (due to skin color, sexual orientation, neurodivergence, disability, etc. -- often several overlapping things) who are clinging by their nails to the workforce. You'll find many similar stories.
Many of us are gone already. Many of my friends are gone or on their way out (homelessness, etc).
The kind of comprehensive help we need simply isn't there. We disappear quietly. You don't see us go, and we are not noticed or missed by anyone except our immediate circle or whatever community we can cobble together.
Seriously, go talk to people. You'll find that this is a common but unspoken thing.
