A trauma counsellor will advise you to concentrate on the ‘what is rather than the what if’s” and I would normally wholeheartedly agree, however…

What if you feel that life is unbearable, that to carry on simply existing is becoming impossible?

What if your tremor increased to the point you can no longer hold a cup of tea and you trip and fall every day?

What if you feel your extreme depression and anxiety is so burdensome to your loved ones that you can see no alternative but to leave this world and them behind?

What if you are in your seventies, angry and confused, only familiar with childhood memories and you don’t recognise anyone who lives in your home?

What if you can no longer look after your children because your bone aching pain and debilitating exhaustion keeps you bed bound?

What if your animal product free diet, which felt so healthy in the beginning, suddenly makes you feel like life is a horrendous job you keep having to drag yourself to clock into?

What if your refusal to eat and your skeletal frame make you no longer interested in life, in friends, in anything anymore?

What if you bladder and bowel let you down so frequently you no longer see your friends, no longer leave your home?

What if your longed for baby arrives perfectly healthy following a traumatic gas and air filled labour and your post natal depression means that you feel absolutely nothing for your child a year on?

What if, no matter how hard you search, you cannot find joy anywhere, in anyone or anything at all?

What if your family and you decide that assisted dying is now the best and only way forward?

What if your loved one was assisted in leaving this earth plane without ever trying B12 injections?

This is obviously a highly controversial and emotive subject and perhaps it only becomes something to consider if it directly affects us?

We know that B12 deficiency is very common and commonly misdiagnosed so just imagine a world where, in each of the scenarios above, someone has the sense of mind to check for vitamin B12 deficiency?

Imagine that low B12 is found (and this would not be a stretch) and imagine if each man or woman is treated with regular B12 and as an individual? 

Then…

What if life became fulfilling and happiness arrived? What if you suddenly fell in love with your child, your tremor disappeared and you could balance perfectly, you felt motivated about life and you experienced a joy you’d never felt before? What if the problems with your bowel and bladder corrected and you could start to enjoy life again?  What if you started to recognise those people living in your home as loved ones and the confusion and anger just melted away?

We know that diagnosis of B12 deficiency can be fraught with illogical red tape and reference ranges. BUT surely we could drop all that rubbish if someone was really up against it and was requesting to end their own life?

Assisted dying is already legal in some areas of the world, Here, Canada is a country a little too eager in offering it to those they feel are in need. In the UK, MP’s recently voted to pass the following Bill – Terminally ill adults (end of life)  Bill 24-25

What will it mean for Britons?

Poor mental health isn’t considered to be a terminal illness but what if it eventually becomes one in UK law, as it has in the Netherlands and Canada?
Take a look at the information surrounding the case of physically healthy Zoraya Ter Beek who was euthanised aged 29.

This article from the Free press states:

Ter Beek, who lives in a little Dutch town near the German border, once had ambitions to become a psychiatrist, but she was never able to muster the will to finish school or start a career.

She said she was hobbled by her depression and autism and a personality disorder. Now she was tired of living—despite, she said, being in love with her boyfriend, a 40-year-old IT programmer, and living in a nice house with their two cats.

She recalled her psychiatrist telling her that they had tried everything, that “there’s nothing more we can do for you. It’s never gonna get any better.”

At that point, she said, she decided to die. “I was always very clear that if it doesn’t get better, I can’t do this anymore.”

In the same article a healthcare ethicist states:

“I’m seeing euthanasia as some sort of acceptable option brought to the table by physicians, by psychiatrists, when previously it was the ultimate last resort,” Stef Groenewoud, a healthcare ethicist at Theological University Kampen, in the Netherlands, told me. “I see the phenomenon especially in people with psychiatric diseases, and especially young people with psychiatric disorders, where the healthcare professional seems to give up on them more easily than before.”

Theo Boer, a healthcare ethics professor at Protestant Theological University in Groningen, served for a decade on a euthanasia review board in the Netherlands. “I entered the review committee in 2005, and I was there until 2014,” Boer told me. “In those years, I saw the Dutch euthanasia practice evolve from death being a last resort to death being a default option.” He ultimately resigned.

And this from The Mail…

Beek said her crippling depression and anxiety caused her to self-harm and feel suicidal for years, claiming that no amount of mental health treatment – which to date has included talking therapies, various medications and even electroconvulsive therapy – has worked to reduce her affliction.

When she was just 22, Beek opted to get a do not resuscitate badge, something that is typically worn by elderly people.

How desperately heartbreaking that it appears the end of this young woman’s life was a foregone conclusion helped by a statement made by a psychiatrist? I have no idea if Zoraya was ever tested or treated for B12 deficiency, there’s no mention. But, given that the vast majority of health professionals don’t receive any education in B12 deficiency (or in nutrition as a whole) it’s highly likely that this condition was not on the radar of anyone involved in her care. How many others have gone before her who could have been saved by a safe, cheap, life enhancing vitamin?

How many times has this particular psychiatrist uttered the words “there’s nothing more we can do for you. It’s never gonna get any better” ?

How many times have other psychiatrists have used the same soul destroying phrase with their desperate patients? How many lives unnecessarily extinguished?

Imagine a law where everyone who feels that assisted dying is the only thing they can hope for, must have the chance to try vitamin B12 injections. A law that would help preserve life. I for one would support a Bill demanding this.

Kindness always
Tracey
www.b12info.com