(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?

Agree with this. She made the decision that was right for her. Everyone should have that choice legally.

Fly high you Star ⭐
No judgement here
Go Your Own Way ❤️

@Clumsywithwords I don't know, but I imagine it will be very regulated

I sat and watched my mum dying and thought this is ridiculous, she is actively dying and if I did this to an animal it would be cruelty. But I had to watch her die over days rather than her being able to take a choice to end it
I'm petrified of dementia, and I've done a living will to refuse all treatment if I develop it. But I do wish there was an option where I could pick assisted suicide (without the huge price tag and travel)

I also know my dad is the same, and if he is diagnosed he will take his own life which will be heartbreaking but again, his choice

She couldn't though
She wanted sexual function, a working bladder and bowel and adrenaline rushes. If she couldn't hunt or event or race round on a quad bike, it wasn't for her
There was no life she could carve out that would enable her to orgasm or to not use a catheter etc

I don't actually know this case but I am surprised at how recent the accident was. My neighbour was paralysed about ten years ago and he said it took him about 6 years to accept it and get on with his life (he was an adrenaline junkie too). 2 years seems too short tbh.

@RegretMisery are you okay?

Personally, I don’t think that the NHS is in a good enough state to trust it with this responsibility atm. It’s currently massively under-resourced, poorly managed, and extremely disorganised and there would be bound to be, imho, breaches of ethics or decisions made for financial reasons only.

I would like to add another perspective. I live in a country where people have the right to die and my doctor told my dh and me that he felt very frustrated by the system sometimes since the new right to die legislation was introduced, because at that point everything became formalised in to two distinct formal pathways.

You would think that’s a good thing but the doctor said since care was formalised that way, in to assisted dying or not assisted dying, he can no longer use his judgement and give strong pain killers to the patients he has known a long time who have opted to NOT have assisted dying or he could be prosecuted.

He said he had just attended a situation where a middle aged patient of his was dying of a chronic disease who was dying at home in extreme pain. Him, his nurse and family were asking for more pain relief and the gentleman needed it, but the doctor wasn’t allowed to prescribe it as it would have been over the limit for pain relief only.

So please be careful everyone what you wish for and how it is organised before you vote affirmatively!

Obviously I am referring there to patients who are going to die anyway so slightly different to the case discussed by the op.

I have every sympathy for that woman and being horsey myself can understand where she was coming from. Unlike a pp I felt her letter was rational and she had a good understanding of who she was. But like others I think perhaps she could have given it more time and was surprised tbh that she was allowed to act so quickly.

nope

I'm not eloquent enough to have worded it in a better way, so I knew I sounded selfish and for that I apologise. Not my intention at all. Its just all far too close to home for me to really even read. I'll bow out now.

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She mentioned her bowel and bladder managment.

For anyone with a severe spinal injury, this can be one of the hardest things to come to terms with. Manual evacuation of your bowels using your fingers isn't everyone's idea of "positivity".

I don't agree with her decision, but I understand it.

I think that is my take too. We have none of us got the full picture - has anyone come across any independent reporting of her death? - and none of us have walked in her shoes.

But I have a natural hesitancy about publicizing or making too much of these situations. Accounts where those dealings with terrible life-changing blows have found new ways to live are going to help a lot more people.

@Paperbagsaremine I think the letter she left is pretty independent reporting

Many years ago I worked with a young man who was paralysed from the neck down during a rugby match. He adapted to that life, carved out a career, married and had kids. He was also a staunch defender of the right to die, and felt strongly that the path he has chosen was right for HIM, and had nothing to do with anyone else’s choices.

He passed away a few years ago (from natural causes) and I still think often of his intelligence, compassion, and support of the right to choice and self-determination. I know he would have offered Caroline support and friendship, and would have supported her choice as being right for her.

I felt privileged reading her letter and feel like I’d have loved to meet her - proud, raging, blazing with life right to the end. It’s coherent and lucid, and pulls no punches. It’s an angry young woman lamenting the loss of all that made her feel like herself - her ability to ride horses, to be independent, to have sex, to seek adrenaline. I hate the way people in these situations are expected to be ‘brave’ or ‘inspiring’ in a weirdly sanitised way so that others feel more comfortable about the often crappy reality of living with a severe life-changing injury. Many people live full lives with one, but that’s not for everyone and that choice should absolutely be respected and acknowledged as valid.

@RegretMisery Sending hugs, I know how you feel. If you ever need to chat just message xx

I totally see where she is coming from. To go from.such an active high adrenaline life to where she was I would make the same decision.

The sad thing about it all is that she felt the need to write the letter knowing their would be gossip and speculation over her death.

I think it's desperately sad but totally her decision . She was young , 31 , so decades more of disability ahead would make anyone despair . I can totally understand her decision . I've ridden horses all my life and it's more than just a hobby it's a way of life , all you know . Not being able to ride again would be unthinkable.

I am so sorry to hear. But no-one should have to spend 15k to travel to a foreign country to die alone, in a flat on an industrial estate. Which is why it is time the Law was changed so that people here can have the choice - here, in their own home, and with their loved ones, without the fear that they could be prosecuted.

Exactly how I feel as well. Quality of life should always come before quantity of life.

What a very patronising response. I am sure she knew her own mind and made her decision with care and consideration. There are worse things to endure than ending a life and it's up to individuals, imo, when that end should be.

@XenoBitch "I doubt it. She could not have the life she craved in a wheelchair (and the incontinence and sexual issues that came with it). This is why I don't think the social model of disability is particularly helpful."

I agree. I disabled by my disability. I am disabled when at home on my own. Society could make things easier for me by making adjustments but can't take away my disability or make me less disabled. This type of thinking leads to the type of toxic positivity (and ableism as it implies that disabled people don't know their own minds) in the post you've responded to.

Beautifully articulated - personally I think everybody should be able to have the choice.

I am by no means an authority on this woman's life or, indeed, her choice to end it but I can share a little of my experience.

I was diagnosed with MND and am now wheelchair user who can barely lift water to my mouth and I am losing my voice.

Now, as a big talker, mover and shaker who travelled, lived to work out, was an early years teacher, the first 2 years of diagnosis and progression were absolutely devestating and I will admit that I was so depressed, angry and grief stricken, I longed for an end. And I have been suicidal in my pre-disabled life. The desperation and terror is...simply indescribable. While I do believe that, eventually, I will hope for the right to assisted suicide purely because my quality of life will be so hinged on another and what they determine to be "quality"...I have learned that I cannot fight the inevitable, but I can use what I have to develope a life worth living on my terms.

When I read the ladies note, she sounded UTTERLY defeated by so many ableist perspectives that she couldn't seem to shift. She sounded so angry (as she was entitled to feel), so miserable (as she was entitled to feel). And so lost in where to go from where she was (as I know many with acquired disability are.) And I wish that, even to just make the way clearer towards her choice, there was more representation for her to see that there was so SO much more of her than what she was (quite rightly) fixated on, her paralysis. And more time had been spent on giving her the space to not be a super hero...but to feel every ounce of that loss she had experienced outside of her expectations.

Again, I cannot speak for her at all. And I certainly do not judge her for her choices made. But I can judge her by the standard she set for herself that she wished to be measured by and some of the painful words she said about herself...and say that I believe her to be wrong... I think she was so much MORE muchlier than she gave herself credit for. As many people do when they are struck by traumas that cause us to re-evaluate how we are going to move forward in life, we need to move through the loss.

Each comes to their own conclusion and that was hers.