Rational suicide:

[grandmoon]

Beverley Broadbent was not dying of a terminal illness, nor was she depressed or unhappy. But at 83, she wanted to die.

After living a rich and satisfying life, the Brighton East woman said the ageing process had come to feel like a disease that was robbing her of her physical and mental fitness. In February, she said she had had enough.

''I look well and I walk well so people think I'm fine. But I have so many things wrong with me,'' she said. ''The balance is gone. It's taking so much time for me to keep fit to enjoy myself that there's not enough time to enjoy myself.''

In several interviews with Fairfax Media, Ms Broadbent said she planned to take her own life so she could have a peaceful, dignified death. She said she did not want her health to deteriorate to the point where she had dementia or found herself in a nursing home with no way out.

The environmental activist chose to tell her story because she believed many elderly people wanted to die when they felt their life was complete, but lacked the means to go gently.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/rational-suicide-why-beverley-broadbent-chose-to-die-20130401-2h34...

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/rational-suicide-why-beverley-broadbent-chose-to-die-20130401-2h34...

[purple.cow]

My point is:

The reasons Beverley cited for wanting to kill herself seemed to be issues that could have been addressed. Instead of advocating suicide when a person has 'had enough' why not try to address the problems first as a collective society?

It seems to me that Beverley made her choices based upon her personal circumstances, and that was her right.

Your notion of a caring 'collective society' doesn't exist in the modern western world so I believe your point is mute.

The reality for so many people these days is that they live in an isolated existence where no-one else gives a toss for the individual.

You appear to be living in a cloud cuckooland Utopia, just as so many academic minded people tend to do, but things are far different out there in the real big wide world.

[**meep**]

Hi moorna 🙂  That may be so in some cases but I think you need to consider that there are people who do not support this "rational suicide" that have experienced personal tragedies and came out on the other side with a different perspective.

[purple.cow]

Hi moorna 🙂  That may be so in some cases but I think you need to consider that there are people who do not support this "rational suicide" that have experienced personal tragedies and came out on the other side with a different perspective.

Good talking with you again 🙂

Oh, believe you me Meep, I've been down that road a couple of times in my own life so I accept they can come through it, but living alone is one of the hardest things to handle as you get older, especially when you suffer health issues.

I've suffered mild clinical depression since my wife passed away suddenly and sometimes feel as though life is so much of a waste of time through it, so I can easily understand why other people make the choice to check out of life altogether in similar circumstances.

There's a pretty fair chance that I'll be opening myself up to receiving another blasting from the badmouthing posters here, but to hell with it ...

A few years back I was invovled in a bad crash when a car carrying two people crossed the highway in front of my B Double rig.

I had nowhere to go to avoid hitting them and no time to either. One second they were coming toward me on the correct side of the highway, the next second they were coming straight at me on my side of the road.

They were both killed and I ended up in hossie with various injuries, but the worst part of it for me was trying to get it right in my head that I wasn't to blame for their deaths.

I sank into a bout of very bad depression over it all, so much so that I even got as far as chucking a rope of a beam in one of my sheds to hang myself.

If my wife hadn't arrived at the moment she did I'd have done it.

I spent a fair while afterward with quacks that talked all sorts of BS to me, but in the end it was a matter of me needing time to come to terms with what had happened so I could finally see the wood from the trees I couldn't see during those darkest days.

Now I recognise what was going on in my mind back then, and that there was no rationale invovled in my thinking at the time, but suicide certainly made perfect sense to me at the time.

No matter if it was rational or not, my decision to have taken my own life would still have been mine, no mater what anyone else thinks.

[jean2579]

Moorna, I hope that you are in a better place now. You must be amazingly strong. I have been married for almost 50 years and don,t .know how I would handle it if he wasn't,  here anymore.

[the_bob_delusion]

Eh?

I was just saying correlation does not imply cause and effect. 

Just coz' someone in the family off themselves doesn't mean it will CAUSE later generation to do the same. 

[*crikey*mate*]

ra·tion·al  (rsh-nl)adj.

1. Having or exercising the ability to reason.

2. Of sound mind; sane.

3. Consistent with or based on reason; logical: rational behavior. See Synonyms at logical.

If a person were to make a pro con list and could list 100 reasons why they didn't want to be here, but only 2 for why they should be here - would it be logical to follow the pro or con side?

[purple.cow]

Moorna, I hope that you are in a better place now. You must be amazingly strong. I have been married for almost 50 years and don,t .know how I would handle it if he wasn't,  here anymore.

No Jean, I'm no stronger than the next person, but I'm beginning to learn how to adjust to my present circumstances slowly.

Keeping my mind and body as busy as possible is helping, but I still hit a wall in the wee hours of the night.

I tried to open a discussion on the topic here once but it got pulled and attacked as if I were hunting for a replacement life partner, but that couldn't have been farther than the truth as I am not interested in starting over again now, but it would have been good to have been able to just chat harmlessly in somewhere like this. It may well have even helped others like me.

Them's the breaks though I guess.

It did served to prove my earlier point that the 'collective society' doesn't care about the individual though.

Leastways, not on Ebay.

[**meep**]

Gosh Moorna, I'm so sorry to hear that. If you ever need to talk :-x 

[jean2579]

I'm with meep. 

[crystal-gems]

How would posters feel if it was their Mother (that they loved) who decided to do this at 80+ years    I wouldn't want my mother to do this.

Am*3......It is not about YOU.  It is about a rational thinking elderly  person's personal choice.

Maybe if you are lucky enough to survive until your 80's you may feel differently and not have the selfish view you now have.

Would you feel more comfortable to watch someone you love live in pain or dementia so your precious feelings are not offended?.

Many older people know when their time is up and want to go out on a high note

.

Some people just don't get it !