Discussion Mental competency and suicide.

[Forever Sleep]

One thing that really gets my goat is that the decision to take your own life is often automatically seen a sign of mental illness and worse, mental incompetency.

I doubt I have anything more than mild to moderate depression- if that. But, I'd get angry if someone tried to insist I didn't have the mental capacity to be able to make rational decisions for myself. Hell- society expects me to make decisions. There's no way I'd qualify for benefits. How can they have it both ways? If I truly am mentally incompetent, why do they expect me to work?

Has anyone here done a mental competency test? I imagine such things must exist. Surely, when they are assessing people with say dementia on whether they can make a will or dissolve their assets, assessing a criminal on whether they can be held accountable for their crimes- they must assess competency.

I have this maybe crazy idea that I would want to take one of those tests before I CTB to prove a point. I don't want people blaming it on me being out of my head and not thinking clearly. Maybe fine if they want to suggest depression but- who isn't depressed these days? It's almost the new normal!

I wonder if it's even possible. I wonder what you'd say to get one done. Maybe it's a ridiculous idea. It probably wouldn't go anywhere anyway. They only report on certain suicides I suspect. Mostly youngsters or people who do it in public places. I expect most middle aged home based suicides go unreported.

Plus- it flies in the face of what they like to report. Someone with non debilitating mental illness with a not terrible life who has proved they are mentally competent freely chooses to leave this life because they simply don't like it and don't see why they should put up with it anymore. It doesn't really fit their narrative.

 

[Zany]

I could hardly agree more with you. Not evryone who wants to take their own life is clinically depressed or incapable of taking basic care of themselves. While I don't doubt there's a substantial chunk of suicidal people who are, it's unreasonable to sweep evryone else under the rug. As you said, it doesn't fit the narrative. Though if those who report on suicide took the rest of us into account, they'd have to acknowledge the fact that that human society is built on suffering and destruction and looking at it from that point of view, not wanting to participate only seems logical to anyone with basic empathy. Though of course no government or media outlet would ever entertain the idea that our way of functioning is fundamentally flawed.

 

[mortuarymary]

There are people on here who are disabled. Have no way to end their suffering lives with this forum.
I do have mental health issues as well as a disability. But MH far outweighs anything else.

 

[Praestat_Mori]

Generally speaking, if someone is not mentally disabled from birth the actual decision that suicide can be an option is made much earlier in life, long before someone may not be able to make such a decision due to dementia or similar illnesses. Imo in most cases it was a rational decision long before actual suicide is the only option left.

 

[Doemu]

Not gonna lie, in my case is mental illness.
Still i no regret.

 

[Forever Sleep]

There are people on here who are disabled. Have no way to end their suffering lives with this forum.
I do have mental health issues as well as a disability. But MH far outweighs anything else.

Certainly and I'm not refuting that there are. In fact, I feel even worse for people who are in so much suffering- physical and mental. Still, the question still remains- are these people mentally competent? I'd argue you can be ill, even mentally ill and still be capable of understanding your situation, your options and the likely outcome of your actions on both yourself and others. I'd imagine that's a sign of competency- isn't it? How else do you define competency? To understand your situation, understand your place in it, understand what likely effect your actions will take.

Now, if someone said- I want to die because if I don't, I know an alien species orbiting the moon will use their alien magic to make ordinary household items come to life to butcher every living creature. They told me this on the spaceship when they abducted me last Thursday. The only chance for this world's inhabitants to survive is if I sacrifice myself. They told me this. It's a test of human sacrifice and, I'm willing to do it! Then... I'd say that person could well be in a psychotic state and needs assessing.

Someone either suffering with a mental or physical illness or not who can tell you exactly why they don't want to live. Why they don't think things can improve for them. If necessary- what they've considered, what they've tried even and why it likely won't or didn't work. How they think their suicide may impact others. What they've done or intend to do to try and mitigate the impact. All that shows competency- no?

I find it ludicrous that they'll say a serial killer that hacks people to bits has competency, yet we don't.

I really wish they'd clear that one up. I wish they'd just stop taking the lazy option of blaming most suicides on mental health. Because to some extent, it allows the normies to wash their hands of it I feel. They can just decide that that person was in a psychotic state when they offed themselves. Worse- they'll say they are 'vulnerable' and they were coerced into doing it by places like this.

Not that I've read that many articles but- fine, if they want to blame mental health- why don't they dig deeper? What treatment had that person received? Lots? None? Did they ask for help? Did they get it? Obviously it failed rather spectacularly! If they're so convinced mental illness is the root cause to most or all suicides, then great- they know where to put their resources. If that support is clearly failing- then, why? Is it because they can't treat all mental illness? Then, they ought to admit that so that it can be judged the same as physical illness and those poor sods can get access to VAD when it inevitably comes along. If it's lack of resources- then, the penny pinchers in our government need to make choices. They'd probably prefer to spend the money on war rather than healthcare but, there we go. Just great- kill others that want to live and stop people who do want to die from exiting peacefully. The world is on its head!

You can argue that illnesses like depression can taint someone's viewpoint negatively. Fine then- they should either cure it, or admit they they can't always. Anyhow, should a cancer patient be obliged to undergo an experimental treatment/drug that may make them feel worse? Should they be obliged to undergo any treatment in fact? Do any of these psychiatrists 100% know how these mind altering drugs work? Considering the brain itself is still a bit of a mystery, I don't see how they can! Would they take them themselves? Would someone call a cancer patient 'mentally incompetent' for wishing to die rather than put themselves through trying to fight it? They may still not grant them their wish but, if they took matters into their own hands, I doubt so many would be so callous to say- why didn't they hang on? Sorry, it just infuriates me. All of it!

 

[Himeasa]

The life-cultists will state that any suicidality automatically means incompetency, because you couldn't be possibly competent and desire to die. Obviously this is a circular argument and presumes that life has a self-evident worth, or imperative, to be lived at any price. I guess that much is true, even, but only from a reductive perspective: insofar we are living organisms, we are primed to live, at all, in any way, as long as we live, and therefore death is completely at odds with our basis of existing and thinking such.

However, we can reflect on this base instinct and our conditions that surround us, and we can abstract.

The life-cultists truly are the most arrogant bunch. Their teleology rests on survivorship bias: only (or, in vast majority) people who want to live, and have lived, claim life is absolutely worth it (and sometimes even should be forced on unwilling people) because everybody else is dead already. Same for organisms as an axiom: all lifeforms that didn't want to live or didn't press for live, obviously, have not been not favoured by selective processes. We evolved with a strong survival instinct because the rest was filtered out.

The few alive people that vocally support suicide liberty are shunned and our perspective is dismissed from the start, so for the cult there is no possibility that they could be wrong.

 

[rozeske]

I come from a place where mental health issues and suicides are associated with being possessed by the devil. Sad and kind of funny but I guess it shalters the loved ones from the guilt of was this my fault.

Yup, true story!

 

[doneforlife]

I guess it drills down to 2 things.
1. There are sages who leave their body at their own will ( I am not sure if I should call it suicide ), but it's termed as "Samadhi". It's done by people who have no desires left for this world and it's pleasures. They are the monks who have left all possible attachments and practice a strict regime. But the point here is desirelessness. They are not termed incompetent.

2. Then there are the rest of us. We are still attached in someway to this world. The only thing is we have lost all hope. What others are trying to tell us is to hold on a bit more. But since ours is a predictive brain and since we have already tried out many ways , the prediction almost always comes out the same. To let go . A person not in our situation thinks why let go when you can still hope ? We start thinking why hope ? It's all a case of hope.That's why it's said that forcing ourselves out of this world before time is because we lost all hope and hope is nothing but a mental construct. Hence it's linked to mental state. In a way we are incompetent to generate hope. With physical illness, the other party can still comprehend this and sympathize. In case of mental illness, visibility in most cases is reduced to zero.

 

[Tesha]

Yup, following a very shitty cold turkey benzo withdrawal, I've been left with fluctuating capacity. The way it's managed under UK legislation is capacity is presumed unless there are indicators that it may not be present. Capacity is decision specific at the time the decision needs to be made - so you can't presume blanket capacity for lots of different decision's. The person needs to have an impairment of the mind and lack at least one of the four following criteria, at the time the decision is being made to lack capacity:

• understand the information relevant to the decision
• retain that information for long enough to make the decision
• use or weigh up that information as part of the process of making the decision
• communicate their decision in any way

Different competencies of people are required for different decisions - it all depends on how you're presenting and the severity of the decision. For example, a carer may be able to determine someone has capacity to decide what to wear or eat that day, but they wouldn't be able to determine if the person had capacity to sell their house and invest in shares.

Illnesses do affect capacity - for example someone who is anorexic may refuse to eat to the point they may die. The medics can argue it's the effect and presentation of having anorexia that means they aren't able to weigh up the eating / not eating decision properly. So, they intervene and force feed. It's the same for dementia or bipolar or anything else that might affect your reasonable appreciation and understanding of your decision - or affect how you've interpreted your decision (your example around psychosis is a good one).

I had to have a capacity assessment to put my Advanced Decision in place, as this document is legally binding on the medics and I am refusing lots of end of life treatment / care - such as CPR, mechanical ventilation, different medications etc. I had to demonstrate over a period of time (weeks) that my thought process was consistent and I understood what I was asking for. It was finally accepted.

I'm also going through a divorce, which obviously requires lots of life changing decisions. The solicitor has to check every single time I'm making a decision - sometimes they accept I have capacity, sometimes they don't. I've had to put a financial power of attorney in place to get through it. Although interestingly, only the court of protection can decide if I can actually get divorced if I lack capacity at the time I need to make that decision….

My mental health team are constantly doing a dynamic one around my intentions to end my life - they've determined at the moment, I have capacity to end my life. It might change tomorrow, but at the moment they won't section me if I say I'm going to kill myself.

Now I've been through it, I actually understand the importance of my decisions being challenged when needed - without it, I would've taken the wrong decision (for me) several times and not realised or appreciated it at the time.

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

This is partly why I find planning to be such a necessity for CTB. People can't objectively say it was due to a mental deficiency or an impulsive decision if it's been in the back of my mind for years and getting worked on for months. If the suicide note is hundreds of pages, the length of a novel, then that clearly shows this was a completely rational decision fueled by years of research and study. No amount of guilt-tripping should be able to withstand that. It's hard work, but if anything in this tragedy we call life should be properly mapped out, it's the ending. If people can really see the dedication one were to put into this endeavor then maybe they'll be less likely to blame other innocent parties for this death.

At the very least I know if my projects fail to communicate logically why my CTB was justified, then at least maybe they'll take comfort in knowing that I still needed to do it anyway because of how willing i was to work on this when anyone who knows me should know I literally hate working on anything else.

 

[ropearoundatree]

yes, just speaking in much more general terms, it is hard to accept when others in society, who have no idea or concept of what it is we go through on their own, and based on or upon, their own experiences in life, to then pass a judgement with such a "label." As you so have wisely ascribed/or described. Prescribed almost, perhaps? ...can you tell I've not slept well in some time? So back to what I was getting at, in part, when they and others in society do this - I believe is serves somewhat as a way or means for them to soften the blow, explain it all away (& quite simply, nicely, and neatly, by the way!) such that they no longer have to think about it anymore. And be so disturbed.

Now as for your question, there is the standard by which a criminal, or someone has committed a serious crime, such as a murder. And then they've got to determine their level of mental competency to be able to determine if they are well or sound enough of mind & judgement, to be able to have understood then, and I suppose now, how fit they are of / or when it comes to their mind (realizing of course, there is the temporary insanity defense).

Though I realize your suggestion poses a much less stringent requirement, or standard than that as posed before would be considered as such. I don't know of what tests exist. But surely you could go into a psychiatrists, or a psychologists office, perhaps, and ask to be assessed. Not just by them, verbally/or orally. But also by written exam, or test. I'm wondering if, among other things, diagnosis included or not. That they wouldn't have some way to measure your level of fitness, when it comes to complacency, and whether one isn't or is not?

To a perfectly sane, and mentally healthy person, one can understand how they might view all completed suicides as acts of mental illness, and therefore draw the line, or conclude from this, to: the insane, or not of well, sound & reasoned or rational / logical - fit & not crazy or psychotic level of cognition, or cognitive functioning. Again, to them! And of course, as we all know, those of us in-the-know. There are levels & varying degrees of severity to this mental illness, depression & otherwise (other disorders) thing. Mild-to Moderate, does not equate to, or with Major, for instance when it comes to depression & a clinical diagnostic assessment of such features present so as to put you in one category of those over another. Or (to) qualify for~

Again--anybody can use Dr. Google, to look up the criteria, but it takes a trained professional to actually do the diagnosing, that is why not just anybody can do it. Though many seem to think they should...