(Trigger warning) Assisted suicide - Caroline March

[Clumsywithwords]

Name changed for this but regular MN user.

I have read and cannot stop thinking about the event rider Caroline March who sadly had a bad riding accident in 22 which resulted to her breaking two vertebrae in her spine, losing the use of her legs and this week has died by assisted suicide, due to the effects of her injuries.

She left with a very moving letter/post (which is circulating round most newspapers forums and isn’t hard to find) which explains why mentally and emotionally she couldn’t go on.

I can’t really articulate what I feel about this, just that I haven’t stopped thinking about her and how she came to the choice she did and while I support assisted dying and can’t even imagine what a horrific injury this must have been to come to terms with, I was (possibly naively) shocked that someone who wasn’t terminally ill or with a degenerative condition could end their life this way.

I’ve read many say that it was such a frank and brave thing to admit and do and there is an element of braveness to it, certainly her letter definitely encapsulates her fierceness of character but I guess I’m on the fence to where the line is for assisted dying and I’m finding her end choice hard to process…

Has anyone else had mixed feelings on this?

I can empathise with her and understand her choice, when the life you wanted is taken away and can never be had, what’s the point? I think it’s a shame we can’t have a choice, we put animals out of their misery why not humans?

Not so very long ago, she would not have survived the accident. The shock,alone, before supportive intervention, would probably have killed her, or the complications of her injuries.

I feel that as medicine has made it possible to lengthen our lives beyond their natural span, we need to reconsider the inevitability of prolonging life artificially. The choice of survival was made for her in the first instance, if she found that she agreed with that choice, that would not be questioned .

But she found that living as an incomplete person in her own eyes was not something to which she could continue to consent. So I think she had the right to choose, and the right to be helped to carry out that choice.

No one knows what we’d be like in that situation. The system throughly let her down, she needed more help for the depression she clearly had. That being said I’ve said if I ever get paralysed or I’m in a coma to the point of no return I don’t want to be here. What’s the use of being alive when you can’t celebrate it.

I read this too, it's heartbreaking. I had a nasty rotational fall when I was 16 and damaged my back among other things but I am so hugely aware of how lucky I was . She was very brave.

I totally understand her decision. If you are that type of person who thrives on adrenaline rushes and the outdoor life, being confined to a wheelchair and at the constant mercy of others to help you do anything or go anywhere must be absolute torture.

Whether I would be brave enough to make that decision, I don’t know, but I wouldn’t judge anyone else for it.

The thing is, do you wish to criminalise suicide?

If not, why do you only have the right to take your own life if you’re physically able, but not if you’re not?

I firmly believe everyone should have the right to choose, and I hope the law changes in the UK to allow everyone that right.

I had followed her story and after the accident you could see how determined she was, putting her all into rehabilitation etc but you could also see how difficult she found it.

She had a crowd funding thing for a (I'm not sure of the correct name) type of electric wheelchair that would drive on all surfaces so she could go round the fields to see her horses and into the arena etc but she often would post about how hard she was finding it and how much she was missing riding.

I saw the letter and actually wish I hadn't. It has made me feel very uneasy. While I applaud her honesty and can totally see her point of view and why she made the decision she did, I don't know, maybe selfishly I found it a little graphic and intrusive reading that letter from someone I had never met.

I think she came across as really brave, really determined and I hope she is at peace now.

If a similar thing happened to me now then I'm pretty sure I'd carry on as I have children, if not then perhaps I'd make the same decision for the same reasons.

There does need to be a change to the law. It's wrong that people go to Dignitas alone so their loved ones don't get investigated. I was with my old cat as she was euthanized.
A short film was released of a woman called Paola Marra who went to Dignitas last week. She had terminal bowel cancer (and previously primary breast cancer). I followed her on Instagram. I was in tears watching it but she puts her point across very well.
It does need to be very closely monitored do people aren't bumping off elderly relatives to get their inheritance etc bit I completely see why people do it.

Whilst I understand comments like this, I find them incredibly distressing. Life can still be treasured and valued even if it is compromised in some way, even if that is in an extremely severe way.

I recall years ago reading a letter from a man who had a similar injury and listed all the reasons as you have why he hated his life.

the part that always stuck out for me, is he said people always say it’s better to be alive. It’s not. imagine having to pick a death for a loved one. You can choose that one day, while perhaps hanging the laundry in the garden, they get hit by a falling stone and instantly die. Or they can be kidnapped, and tortured cruelly for weeks. Which one do you pick? You don’t pick the second, because “at least they are alive,”

It's a desperately sad story and nobody els can know how someone in that situation feels, nor have any right to judge that person

I really don’t understand why some people feel that assisted suicide is ok for those who are infirm, terminal and in pain, but don’t see why it’s an equally valid choice for those who are not terminally ill but have a long life of suffering ahead of them.

it’s sad, and her accident was heartbreaking, I think in her situation I would do the same, but of course you never know unless you’ve been in that situation.

For me personally there is a point where life would become not worth living, and in some instances it becomes demonstrably more cruel making someone suffer miserably for 40 years than it does in pain for 6 months with a terminal illness.

Even if it causes severe mental health distress? This was an extremely active and social woman who had sustained a catastrophic injury leading to loss of bladder, bowel and sexual function. She was 31 and could potentially have had another 60 years in that situation, so she made the right decision for her.

As @Grumpsy and some of the other PPs have said, I don't see why we should potentially allow one group of mentally competent people to consider assisted suicide but deny it to a different group. In many ways, I'd think it's more important for someone like Caroline. She had an instant change which meant a huge change in her life (and her view of jts quality) so to deny means we are facing people like her to endure years and years in a life they consider unbearably compromised.

Being alive per se cannot be the only part of the equation. Just because some
people may cope or that society may feel uncomfortable does should not be the only part of the equation. It doesn't make someone a better or worse person if they could adapt but I don't think I have the right to tell someone else what they have to live with.

I don't feel conflicted.

It's bodily autonomy, which I believe in wholeheartedly.

If I had the guts to, I would too!

I think though if you’ve worked in spinal injuries, cancer care ,neuro or any of the other specialities where you have seen people receive the worst news, you know that there are various psychological stages that people go through…that’s not to say that her decision would have been any different if she was still here 5 years later but I have seen people do a 180 in how they view their life and less than 2 yrs is a very short term to make these psychological adjustments. I was struck byhow much she put into trying to recover over the first year post injury,very typical of those people who end up injured through their passions such as riding, motor biking,skiing,rugby ….but the point at which people realise that perhaps “ this is it” in terms of their recovery is a very difficult one. I am supportive of assisted dying in this country as I know dignitas has resulted in those from the uk needing to “go too soon” and I think people have the right to determine what sort of quality of life they want to live…. but in the current situation of extremely limited NHS resources ( including physical therapies, psychological therapies, aids and adaptations, carers,financial support ) this may sway people’s choices.

It's similar to the story in the book Me Before You.

I'm not against assisted dying, but it does feel like this has all happened very quickly. I don't think she's really had chance to try and carve out a life that she would enjoy.

Also, and this is complete speculation on my part, being a horsey woman may have influenced her decision. You can’t underestimate how difficult it is to have a horse PTS, when you have such an incredible bond with them, and have been through so much together. But you do have to learn to make those difficult calls when you deem the horse’s quality of life to be not worth living. She would have grown up around this, she would have had to make these horrible calls herself, it would have been normal to her. So perhaps she applied the same way of thinking to her own life, and reached the conclusion that she did.

Oh that poor woman. Of course it's her life, her mind and entirely her own right to choose. Nobody has the right to tell a stranger that they should remain trapped in a life they hate because 'life is precious'. Often, life is frankly unlivable.

To add to my previous post, I’m a horsey person and have horses, and maybe this colours my way of thinking

But that should ultimately be up to the person living that life. We should not force people to live to make ourselves feel better.

The question I always ask, which no-one ever has an answer to, is how long should someone keep living a life they don't want? How much suffering should they be made to endure to satisfy the rest of us before we say 'OK, you can go now'?

How sad. A lovely young woman. However it was entirely her choice, just as it should be.

I'm pretty sure that, for me, I'd make a different choice in a similar situation, but we're all different.

Recently near me, a man in his early 30s was paralysed from the neck down in a freak accident. In the newspaper just days later he was pictured in his hospital bed smiling with his girlfriend. I've thought about him a silly amount given that he's a stranger. I hope they manage to keep smiling.

@OkayKinkade for whose benefit?

Your comment comes across as a wildly selfish one.

Sorry posted this and the fell asleep straight after.

Firstly there was so judgement here, I thought I would just process how I felt about Caroline’s life after her accident and assisted dying by writing a post to see if anyone else had complex thoughts on it.

I am also horsey, and daughters now more so than me so it’s just brought up a lot of feelings as is human nature when you can relate to areas of another’s life.

I also agree that reading her letter felt intrusive, I didn’t think it was written very cognitively, quite rambling in fact and that upset me as I could feel panic within it, maybe she was under the influence but definitely someone in a heightened state of emotion that I don’t connect with being of sound mind and capable of making such a huge decision.

I’m going to try and articulate this next part as gently as possible so I’m sorry if I’m not as successful as I’d like to be and it offends, it’s not my intention….

I need rules in my life, they make me feel safe in control and Caroline’s choice along side the work that is being down currently to allow assisted suicide in the UK has thrown shadow to this and made feel quite unnerved on what I thought was very last case choice. Where does the line lie. If there are people who feel they have a low quality of life due to trauma or poor mental health but without physical injury can they also make the same decision Caroline made? How strict are the rules on who qualifies to make that choice?