Help to live better
CASE COMMENT / Suicide is not an option for people with mental illness. Neither is medical aid in dying, according to Georgia Vrakas, a psychologist and psychoeducator in remission from recurrent major depression for 20 years.
Ms. Vrakas feels directly and doubly challenged by the badly debated debate last week on expanding medical assistance
in dying to people with mental illness.
She knows the subject in theory. She holds a Ph.D. and is an associate professor in the psychoeducation department of the Université du
Québec à Trois-Rivières, Center universitaire de Québec, as well as a researcher in mental health and suicide prevention.
She also knows the subject in practice and in her being to live with mental illness since the age of 23, the time of her first depressive episode.
The woman who lives in Quebec is now 43 years old. The last year was marked by another depressive episode and sick leave.
In a letter sent to the Sun that we publish in the Opinions section, Ms. Vrakas, said that she wished that she had no
"choice" of medical aid in dying when the disease struck again.
"We need tools to help us live better and recover rather than tools to help us die," she argues.
In an interview, she explains that medical assistance in dying is not a valid option.
"When you are sick, suffering takes up all the space. You just want it to stop. ”
She recalls that it is repeated in suicide prevention campaigns that "suicide is never an option".
By hinting that death from assisted dying could become an option, we are blurring the message.
Vrakas believes that before thinking about expanding medical assistance in dying to people with mental illness,
they must first be offered services for treatment and more research in psychiatry.
She notes that sometimes the sick do not even have access to the minimum, a family doctor. There is also access to psychotherapy which is lacking. Ms. Vrakas also points out that there are good services in community organizations, but again, people need to know where and who to contact.
It is also necessary that sick people dare to ask for help and consult. There is still stigma around mental illness.
The shrink is well placed to find out. She admits that it was only last year that she went to get help "for real".
She is delighted to have obtained good services in Quebec.
It was not until November that she publicly dared - in an open letter - to present herself as a research psychologist who used services that were essential to her survival and her life. Before, she was afraid of meeting students or patients if she went to depression self-management workshops.
She had poor shoemaker syndrome.
"What we want is for us to be helped to live, not to die," also wrote Luc Vigneault, from Quebec, and 40 signatories
of a letter that we also publish in Le Soleil on Tuesday.
“[...] we are in the best position to know how much we can suffer during certain periods. We know how much this suffering can lead to despair, how it robs us of our freedom, when illness takes up all the space and it robs us of our ability to make informed decisions. In such times, we come to see suicide as the only way to end suffering. But precisely, these are only periods ”, maintain the signatories.
Both they and Ms. Vrakas speak of hope. A hope that should not be reduced to zero by acting as if suffering
from a mental illness and suffering from terminal cancer was the same thing.
During her practice as a psychologist, Ms. Vrakas has seen patients in very dark times find a reason to stay alive,
to get up in the morning to continue living. "There is always hope," she said.
When Quebec began the debate on medical assistance in dying, it appeared essential that the patient's choice to
anticipate his death rested on an informed and reasonable decision. The same condition will apply for people with mental illness.
Danielle McCann, Minister of Health and Social Services, made a wise decision by backing up and taking the time to better document if it is appropriate, and if so under what conditions and according to what criteria, to extend medical assistance in dying for individuals suffering from severe mental illness.
"We are taking a break," she said on Monday.
A welcome break that should allow for a broad and rigorous reflection like the one that Quebec has been able to achieve
to respond to physical patients who demanded to die with dignity.
in dying to people with mental illness.
She knows the subject in theory. She holds a Ph.D. and is an associate professor in the psychoeducation department of the Université du
Québec à Trois-Rivières, Center universitaire de Québec, as well as a researcher in mental health and suicide prevention.
She also knows the subject in practice and in her being to live with mental illness since the age of 23, the time of her first depressive episode.
The woman who lives in Quebec is now 43 years old. The last year was marked by another depressive episode and sick leave.
In a letter sent to the Sun that we publish in the Opinions section, Ms. Vrakas, said that she wished that she had no
"choice" of medical aid in dying when the disease struck again.
"We need tools to help us live better and recover rather than tools to help us die," she argues.
In an interview, she explains that medical assistance in dying is not a valid option.
"When you are sick, suffering takes up all the space. You just want it to stop. ”
She recalls that it is repeated in suicide prevention campaigns that "suicide is never an option".
By hinting that death from assisted dying could become an option, we are blurring the message.
Vrakas believes that before thinking about expanding medical assistance in dying to people with mental illness,
they must first be offered services for treatment and more research in psychiatry.
She notes that sometimes the sick do not even have access to the minimum, a family doctor. There is also access to psychotherapy which is lacking. Ms. Vrakas also points out that there are good services in community organizations, but again, people need to know where and who to contact.
It is also necessary that sick people dare to ask for help and consult. There is still stigma around mental illness.
The shrink is well placed to find out. She admits that it was only last year that she went to get help "for real".
She is delighted to have obtained good services in Quebec.
It was not until November that she publicly dared - in an open letter - to present herself as a research psychologist who used services that were essential to her survival and her life. Before, she was afraid of meeting students or patients if she went to depression self-management workshops.
She had poor shoemaker syndrome.
"What we want is for us to be helped to live, not to die," also wrote Luc Vigneault, from Quebec, and 40 signatories
of a letter that we also publish in Le Soleil on Tuesday.
“[...] we are in the best position to know how much we can suffer during certain periods. We know how much this suffering can lead to despair, how it robs us of our freedom, when illness takes up all the space and it robs us of our ability to make informed decisions. In such times, we come to see suicide as the only way to end suffering. But precisely, these are only periods ”, maintain the signatories.
Both they and Ms. Vrakas speak of hope. A hope that should not be reduced to zero by acting as if suffering
from a mental illness and suffering from terminal cancer was the same thing.
During her practice as a psychologist, Ms. Vrakas has seen patients in very dark times find a reason to stay alive,
to get up in the morning to continue living. "There is always hope," she said.
When Quebec began the debate on medical assistance in dying, it appeared essential that the patient's choice to
anticipate his death rested on an informed and reasonable decision. The same condition will apply for people with mental illness.
Danielle McCann, Minister of Health and Social Services, made a wise decision by backing up and taking the time to better document if it is appropriate, and if so under what conditions and according to what criteria, to extend medical assistance in dying for individuals suffering from severe mental illness.
"We are taking a break," she said on Monday.
A welcome break that should allow for a broad and rigorous reflection like the one that Quebec has been able to achieve
to respond to physical patients who demanded to die with dignity.