Story Debated the right to die with my therapist

[1MiserableGuy]

In complaining about my inability to be honest with my mother because she punishes honesty, I shoehorned in how, if you tell a mandatory reporter like a therapist you'd rather die than live, they punish your honesty by making your life worse, and making you live through it.

He was actually quite collected. The first thing he did was just suggest that there are more people needing wards than there are wards, and that because of that people are absolutely willing to work on you to come up with a situation where you're "safe" without being institutionalized.

The main problem the therapist presented with voluntary euthanasia or other right to die forms is the potential for abuse in the form of killing people who don't want to die. He himself threw nurses under the bus saying his experience with many of them would lead him to believe a nurse would just pull the plug on somebody because she was having a bad day and didn't want to deal with administering palliative care, for example.

I suggested that there is a big difference between someone who is just blue and needing some help and someone who has rationally weighed out the pros and cons of their life, and found the cons to well outweigh the pros. And I conceded that, because the right to die is such a controversial topic, and the general public hardly has the attention span to think through issues relevant to our status quo, it would be difficult to regulate voluntary dying.

It was something of a relief to talk to someone who disagreed about this issue and didn't just parrot the same trite horse shit over and over again. A man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still.

 

[LigottiSchopenhauer]

I want to give you a warning. My last therapist suddenly ended our relationship when I told her I was having suicidal thoughts with an idea for a method. This was after 15 months of me seeing her almost every other week. I had developed a great relationship with her and trusted her completely, but once it got too hard for her to deal with, she abruptly said I should see a different therapist instead.

That would have been bad enough, but then she told my parents about my suicidal thoughts, even though I had directly expressed to her that I wasn't planning to kill myself soon and was just considering a certain method. She freaked my parents out by making it seem like I was literally about to kill myself when I wasn't. Because of this, I will never be able to trust a therapist ever again.

You might think that your therapist is trustworthy and on your side. But at the end of the day, he WILL betray you and violate your confidentiality if he thinks you are going to kill yourself. Not only would he possibly tell your parents, he might even call the police on you. Therapists are always ultimately more concerned about themselves and their professional status than the dignity and autonomy of their clients. You are treading in dangerous waters by even talking to a therapist about this stuff. Please be careful.

 

[1MiserableGuy]

I want to give you a warning. My last therapist suddenly ended our relationship when I told her I was having suicidal thoughts with an idea for a method. This was after 15 months of me seeing her almost every other week. I had developed a great relationship with her and trusted her completely, but once it got too hard for her to deal with, she abruptly said I should see a different therapist instead.

That would have been bad enough, but then she told my parents about my suicidal thoughts, even though I had directly expressed to her that I wasn't planning to kill myself soon and was just considering a certain method. She freaked my parents out by making it seem like I was literally about to kill myself when I wasn't. Because of this, I will never be able to trust a therapist ever again.

You might think that your therapist is trustworthy and on your side. But at the end of the day, he WILL betray you and violate your confidentiality if he thinks you are going to kill yourself. Not only would he possibly tell your parents, he might even call the police on you. Therapists are always ultimately more concerned about themselves and their professional status than the dignity and autonomy of their clients. You are treading in dangerous waters by even talking to a therapist about this stuff. Please be careful.

I'm not suggesting that a therapist wouldn't do that, because they can and do, often. Those kind of trust building tactics are the main ways secret police tag kid diddlers. I'm just suggesting that people outside of right to die activism can reason.

Independently of that, I'm not (currently) suicidal, nor do I live with my parents and haven't lived with them in six years. The main issue some kind of meddling like that would create is that I have my own family, so it would create forced separation from my wife and kid.

 

[Scythe]

That would have been bad enough, but then she told my parents about my suicidal thoughts, even though I had directly expressed to her that I wasn't planning to kill myself soon and was just considering a certain method. She freaked my parents out by making it seem like I was literally about to kill myself when I wasn't. Because of this, I will never be able to trust a therapist ever again.

Wait, is she allowed to do that? Idt therapists are allowed to tell your patents shit. Like that should be straight up against their code of conduct and you can likely get her into a ton of trouble for it if you want to.

The main problem the therapist presented with voluntary euthanasia or other right to die forms is the potential for abuse in the form of killing people who don't want to die. He himself threw nurses under the bus saying his experience with many of them would lead him to believe a nurse would just pull the plug on somebody because she was having a bad day and didn't want to deal with administering palliative care, for example.

Ah the stupidest slippery slope someone can come up with to agrue against right to die. I cannot think of a suituation where someone is euthanized against their will. There can be euthanasia clinics set up and people have to get it done there, or they have to set up a date. And there can be a regulation that askes for recorded consent directly before euthanasia. There's just so many ways to prevent it, if euthanasia is a thing I doubt it'd increase the number of ppl killed by doctors/nurses on purpose.

 

[1MiserableGuy]

Ah the stupidest slippery slope someone can come up with to agrue against right to die. I cannot think of a suituation where someone is euthanized against their will. There can be euthanasia clinics set up and people have to get it done there, or they have to set up a date. And there can be a regulation that askes for recorded consent directly before euthanasia. There's just so many ways to prevent it, if euthanasia is a thing I doubt it'd increase the number of ppl killed by doctors/nurses on purpose.

The very reason auditors have jobs is because no one can be trusted

 

[damyon]

It was something of a relief to talk to someone who disagreed about this issue and didn't just parrot the same trite horse shit over and over again. A man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still.

I genuinely feel happy for you. I too hope I can find someone like that in my life

~~~

But as others mentioned and as you note, therapists are professional manipulators and cannot be trusted.

I wrote about this on My therapist and I bonding over the SN thread.

 

[LigottiSchopenhauer]

Wait, is she allowed to do that? Idt therapists are allowed to tell your patents shit. Like that should be straight up against their code of conduct and you can likely get her into a ton of trouble for it if you want to.

Here's the scary thing: Yes, she is allowed to do that. Soon after this happened, I submitted a formal complaint to my state's Department of Health, which oversees the private therapists who work here. They replied that no misconduct had been committed. The people who are supposed to hold unethical therapists accountable are actually on their side. It's all a big club and we ain't in it.

 

[1MiserableGuy]

Wait, is she allowed to do that? Idt therapists are allowed to tell your patents shit. Like that should be straight up against their code of conduct and you can likely get her into a ton of trouble for it if you want to.

If it's good, it isn't true

 

[sserafim]

I don't think that's a good idea lol. They could section you. I told my psychiatrist that I didn't want to live past 25, and he told me that most women in the US live well into their 80s. I didn't tell him that I wanted to ctb. If I had, he probably would've booked me into the psych ward or something

 

[LigottiSchopenhauer]

I don't think that's a good idea lol. They could section you. I told my psychiatrist that I didn't want to live past 25, and he told me that most women in the US live well into their 80s. I didn't tell him that I wanted to ctb. If I had, he probably would've booked me into the psych ward or something

That was smart of you. I wish that I had been as smart and not gone so far as to discuss specific methods. When someone starts seriously talking about suicide, therapists turn into prosecutors trying to convict them.

 

[Eudaimonic]

I think this is unwise. The risk is simply not worth taking, IMO. I avoid broaching this topic altogether with mine; well, except for when I had no choice.