Depression is terminal??

[Clementia]

About a week ago, someone started a thread to discuss the Brittany Maynard assisted suicide case. The discussion became rather heated, and one of the posters tossed out a comment that disturbed me greatly.

This poster suggested that patients with depression should be allowed assisted suicide, because, after all, "depression is terminal" -- meaning, I suppose, that it isn't a condition that can be cured.

I didn't want to derail the thread, but I can't let a comment like that pass by unanswered. I would like to know if this poster has any personal experience with depression. I would be willing to bet that he/she has no clue about what depression is really like.

I have depression. My mother has severe depression. It runs in my family, and two of my siblings suffer from it as well. We know depression from the inside.

It's horribly easy to toss off some flippant comment about depressives being allowed to kill themselves. Depression plays tricks with your mind. There have been times in my life when I really wanted the pain to stop -- even if that meant death. Then the blackness passed, and I was happy to be alive and incredibly grateful I hadn't put a gun in my mouth.

Depression may not go away, like a broken leg, but it is NOT terminal. Terminal is cancer, heart failure -- any condition that kills you whether you want to die or not. Depression only kills you if you let it.

The last thing depressives like me need to hear is that it's OK to kill yourself if you have a diagnosis of depression. We struggle with suicidal ideation anyway. We don't need encouragement to end it all -- at our blackest points our own brains give us all the suicidal arguments we need. We need someone to encourage us to keep slogging on, someone to tell us that no matter how bad things feel right now, eventually our feelings will change and the world will be bright again. We need a hand to help pull us up out of the pit.

To the person that posted that comment, you know who you are -- don't make ignorant, insensitive remarks about someone else's struggle. You don't know what it's like.

[Jolie, BSN]

Just to clarify:

I do believe that for a very small subset of patients with depression, the disease is, unfortunately terminal.

I do not believe that such a designation justifies physician-assisted suicide. Not for depression, nor any other condition.

[Rachel Q]

Terminal is a terrible word. But there are two types of depression - situational and clinical. Setting situational aside, clinical is what I've suffered with on and off for 20 years. I exercise, eat right, take excellent care of my health, see a therapist and take anti-depressants. Over the last 20 years if I let ONE of those coping mechanisms fall, I end up back in the hole. Unless there are major changes in treatment, I will be on meds for the rest of my life, according to my Psychiatrist.

Is my depression chronic? Yes. It's like any long-term disease. I have to manage it. But will it kill me? Heck no. I've fight it this long and I will fight it forever. But it will never win. Never.

[subee, MSN, CRNA]

If she hadn't publicly called me out, stating I made horrible rude and insensitive remarks I wouldn't have to defend myself. If the op has been an adult and just started a thread on whether depression should be considered a terminal disease, that would be completely okay. But she didn't do that, she said horrible things about me personally. That's what I take deep offense too. Especially since she couldn't be bothered to post the quotes she was so offended by. Just her interpretation of them.

This isn't a PUBLIC forum. No one knows who you are. That is the glory of on-line anonymous forums.

[macawake, MSN]

OP, I haven’t read the original thread, and have no opinion on which one of you is in the right regarding that issue. I don’t agree with your choice to start a new thread, in order to criticize or disagree with what someone has posted in another thread. I think that the correct place to voice disagreement is in the original thread. It’s my philosophy to let those who moderate the site, decide if it’s a derailment or an acceptable response to someone’s post.

You’re not naming whom you’re unhappy with, but you’ve provided enough detail to make

it easy for anyone who’s read the original thread or anyone who does a minimum of research, to identify the target of your disapproval.

When you criticize someone I think it’s best to accurately quote them rather than simply provide your interpretation of their intent. Maybe you interpreted that person’s intent correctly, but perhaps you misunderstood.

When you disagree with someone and voice your objections in the same thread, the other person has a chance to respond to you, and defend themselves if they feel the need to do so. By starting a new thread there’s a chance that the person who has upset you never even sees it, and is in a sense robbed of their opportunity to “defend their honor”, while everybody else is busy discussing the merits of that person’s opinions. I believe that posting in the same thread is a more fair and straightforward approach.

I can certainly understand that someone might become defensive when they by chance happen upon a thread, started for the sole purpose of voicing displeasure of that specific someone. How would you feel? How would anyone of us feel? Even though we post here in the relative protection of anonymity, any criticism directed at our username also reaches the real person behind that username, and I think that most of us appreciate a chance to at least be able to explain ourselves and perhaps clarify specific intent in various remarks we post, if we feel that they have been misinterpreted by someone.

OP, I can tell that whatever SionainnRN originally wrote has upset you and I’m sorry about that. I just think that the two of you would have had a much better chance at resolving this conflict or misunderstanding, if it had been addressed directly rather than

in this roundabout way.

My 0.02

[vintagemother, BSN, CNA, LVN, RN]

I think the poster who started this thread did not want to distract from the topic of that thread by starting a new debate within a debate. I think that makes sense.

I read the original thread.

[LadyFree28, BSN, LPN, RN]

This isn't a PUBLIC forum. No one knows who you are. That is the glory of on-line anonymous forums.

To be fair, most of us to post regularly, and the OP was pretty charged up about the post and has posted some pretty heated words as well; it could have been asked on the other forum for clarification, whether by PM, just could've asked, derailments happen in posts usually, and a clarification post really wouldn't have derailed it too much, since the issue was based on terminal illness and the Oregon death with dignity law.

As someone who has struggled in the past with anxiety and depression in the form of hypomania, including having PTSD currently and have sensitivity to medications, as well as taken care of a percentage of failed suicides, including a few with multiple attempts, I can understand when Sioiainn's POV that she clarified about suicide being a terminal disease; not every medication works; my medication selection is so very limited and on a low dose because of the side effects and other medical issues, I hope to not run that risk; however, there may be someone out there that doesn't want to live that way and would want a way out; they probably would have to travel to the Netherlands to do this, who are we to say that it's "not right"?

I wouldn't do it myself, but just because an individual that may have tried everything under the sun still continues to have suicidal thought to the pint that the want to harm themselves by sticking their arm into the garbage disposal, or jump in front of the bus or jump off the train platform in front of the train despite hearing that they just got a new job and although they hear good things the response is self harm day in and day out, despite meds and therapy, who can fault people that WANT to make that choice?

It's tough, but it isn't our choice to make; should there be options, I think so with DOCUMENTED PROOF.

[ktwlpn, LPN]

To be honest, designating persistent mental illness as a terminal condition seems like a slippery slope to me. Who's next---people with CHF? Elders who are in the early stages of dementia? Scary thought.[ /QUOTE]

Oh, the dreaded "slippery slope" argument. One that is often used by the disabled when they are discussing euthanasia because, after all,assisted suicide is one step away from euthanasia and they think they will be next.

In my experience CHF IS terminal, I have a few on hospice care right now. Certainly tx resistant depressives are at high risk for suicide. Dementia is terminal in nature-you can't make someone with dementia take prescribed meds and eat if they don't want to.

[duskyjewel]

If she hadn't publicly called me out, stating I made horrible rude and insensitive remarks I wouldn't have to defend myself.

She didn't identify you. I doubt most people would have gone to the other thread to find the comment. You outed yourself by being defensive.

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

To be honest, designating persistent mental illness as a terminal condition seems like a slippery slope to me. Who's next---people with CHF? Elders who are in the early stages of dementia? Scary thought.[ /QUOTE]

Oh, the dreaded "slippery slope" argument. One that is often used by the disabled when they are discussing euthanasia because, after all,assisted suicide is one step away from euthanasia and they think they will be next.

In my experience CHF IS terminal, I have a few on hospice care right now. Certainly tx resistant depressives are at high risk for suicide. Dementia is terminal in nature-you can't make someone with dementia take prescribed meds and eat if they don't want to.

You make some good points. I will admit that my POV is a bit skewed because I am disabled to some

extent by mental illness. I'm just saying that I don't think physician-assisted suicide should be an option for conditions like depression, CHF etc. Then again, as I've said elsewhere, I don't believe my state's law on so-called Death With Dignity is morally right, and I voted against it when it was on the ballot back in the 1990s. Most of my fellow Oregonians disagreed with me, and it was their right to do so, just as it's my right to disapprove.

At any rate, the slippery slope has indeed not happened as I feared when the law was passed, and for that I am glad.

[CarryThatWeight, BSN]

Interesting topic. I started the thread OP is referring to, because I do think death with dignity/physician prescribed or assisted suicide or whatever one cares to call it is an ethically charged topic. I have a history of depression personally. Is it terminal? I don't think so. I don't think Sioann RN was saying that all people with depression are terminal, only that it can be for some people, and I agree. However, I do think that when someone is in the throes of a deep, dark depression, to declare them mentally competent to make a decision that is NOT reversible would be disastrous. Most people with depression can come out of it to a great degree, some even fully, and when they do, they are glad they did not act on (or succeed at) any suicidal thoughts. I believe someone on the other thread noted that the Catholic church has revised their stance on suicide as a mortal sin because the person who commits it cannot be deemed to be acting in free will; in other words, the person is not in their right mind or mentally competent at the time they do it. So for that reason, no, I'm not in favor of allowing the depressed person to take a lethal dose of barbiturates.

I have never heard a person who suffers with depression referred to as a "depressive." Am I the only one who has not heard this? I guess there are alcoholics, diabetics, epileptics, and now depressives...

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

"Depressive" isn't politically correct, but it's used. I myself have been referred to as a "manic-depressive" so I'm familiar with the term.

[macawake, MSN]

I think the poster who started this thread did not want to distract from the topic of that thread by starting a new debate within a debate. I think that makes sense.

I read the original thread.

Well, now I have read the other thread. It didn’t change my mind. Starting a new thread doesn’t really make sense to me.

To me, it was never about what was said or wasn’t said in the other thread. I simply feel that if something someone posts upsets you, you tackle that issue head-on.

Virtually every thread of a certain length and thought or emotion-provoking subject matter has several debates within the debate. I don’t think that can or should be avoided. People respond to other people’s thoughts and opinions, driving the debate forward (or in less successful cases, in circles).

If you wish to start a new spin-off thread it should in my opinion be on a particular subject, not about a particular individual poster’s qualities and behavior as you perceive it.

To the person that posted that comment, you know who you are -- don't make ignorant, insensitive remarks about someone else's struggle. You don't know what it's like.

To me this is an example of the latter, rather than the former.

(Quote from OP’s post, I added bold for emphasis)

How would you all feel if you found a thread, started just to voice displeasure with you? Wouldn’t you want an opportunity to respond to the criticism leveled at you?

This is just my opinion on the matter, everyone if free to disagree… or start a thread about me