Wendy Duffy heart breaking but understandable

[youalright]

What a brave lady i hope she's holding her son right now.

You're wrong. There's many of us and in my role as Compassionate Friends volunteer I know of one who has lost BOTH their children.

@ThisHazelPombear that was uncalled for, @Alicorn1707 didn't deserve that.

I'm sorry for what you've been through but that doesn't give you the right to call her the C word.

I don't believe she is with her son and I don't believe her son would have wanted her to do this. I don't believe she had capacity to decide to do this. What she did was, however, legal and that is what she was allowed to choose to do. For ref. I had a sister who took her own life aged late 30s after 15 years of bipolar with psychcosis, which led to multiple sections. She would not have been given choice to go to Switzerland but very much struggled to live any sort of full life.

I don't think we can agree that at all.

Huh? Im wrong that its not common for your children to die before you because you know someone it happened to. Obviously people lose their children otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion. But thankfully its more common for the the parents to die first

Well we can agree to disagree on that.

Grief is so personal. This was her decision to make. I wouldn’t label it brave though. Personally I think people who fight on through immeasurable grief are brave.

It just goes to show no matter what the thread is on here people will come on to argue about it.

I am all for the assisted dying bill to be used in the right circumstances. However to me this shows just why we need to be so very careful. Assisted dying should be for those who have physical illnesses which will be terminal. Using it for mental health issues is a very slippery slope

I think two things can be true

It happened to me! I lost my only child and it's not unusual. Have some compassion.

What?

It’s not unusual? How many other people do you know - who you have not met through the loss of your child - who are in similar circumstances?

(I am very sorry for your loss, it shouldn’t happen to anyone)

Not brave at all. Symptomatic of an increasingly isolated population. No support there to help people grieve and give them hope. The only hope is death. Wrong and sad.

@Freysimo, I think it’s just that the phrase you disagreed with was ‘most people won’t suffer the loss of their only child’.
That phrase is absolutely true. Whilst it does happen (probably more than I realise), it is true to say that most people don’t suffer the loss of their only child.

I’m very sorry to hear that it happened to you. I have an acquaintance who lost her only child. Every time I think about her I feel short of breath. I cannot imagine how hard it is to get through each day.

Edited to delete message.

@ThisHazelPombear You sound (understandably) angry. I don’t think it is fair to take that anger out on posters here by calling them cunts.

Ok, I’ve now read she tried therapy and medication and both failed to work. It’s a very difficult case - sit with mental suffering for what she felt was the rest of her life? I think many who’ve watched loved ones suffer with physical pain and suffering that will never get better (in my family’s case, terminal cancer), you’d never wish it on your worst enemy. You want the suffering to end for them. But mental anguish and suffering? I feel many would think time could help and so maybe feel there is hope.

We don’t know what happens when we die. If there is nothing after, then there is no peace other than an ending of suffering. I don’t feel ending life because you feel you’ll be with loved ones again is a sound reason as there is no evidence. But an end to suffering, I can get my head around.

This is unbearably sad. I don’t know how to think about it. It opens up a profoundly complex debate which is hard to grapple with. I will be thinking of Wendy Duffy today.

This case is very very sad. It is repugnant that people are using it to somehow highlight the positive case for assisted suicide.
It is irresponsible of the media to give it so much publicity, with no doubt it will cause a few extra ‘home’ suicides, unfortunately it will trigger people who are vulnerable and suggestible it into taking that step.
The lady concerned obviously took this course of action because she felt it was the right thing for her, I do not have the right to criticise her for taking that action, but I am concerned she decided to encourage such publicity around her very personal decision, how awful for her family having this limelight thrust upon them.

I think you’ve summed up exactly how I feel about it.

After watching a close relative die from glioblastoma, I absolutely think the option should have been there. You wouldn’t let a dog suffer the way they did towards the end.

Mental health is much more complex, although I don’t think this woman was acutely mentally ill, she was assessed and deemed competent. Maybe in five years time her life would have looked different, maybe it wouldn’t have, but who has the right to judge her and say she should have suffered that pain for x amount of years because her grief “might” have been easier to bear? She had the right to make the choice that she did, and I understand why she did.

I don’t think she’s brace, but as the mother of an only child I would make the same choice. I think losing an only child is different to losing one of multiple children. Obviously the love for the child is the same whether they were an only or had siblings.

But losing an only child is losing your entire practical identity as a mum as well. You no longer have all the day to day parts of being a parent, if your child was small. The networks of friends and acquaintances that come from parenting. And long term, you won’t see the Christmases, birthdays, family holidays graduations, (potentially) the wedding and/or grandchildren, the promotions or get to socialise with your child as an adult.

You’re essentially moved to a childfree life, and that’s not a life I wanted for myself. And living that childfree life alongside the pain of having lost a child is the worst of all worlds to me.

By a company she was paying £10k to.

I also don't agree she's brave. I know people who have lost only children and have built a life from the ashes, not one they would have chosen for sure, but the implication that one's life is over and no longer worth living once their child has died doesn't sit right with me.

I also think it's easy to say "well if my child died I'd feel the same as her", but actually I think she is an outlier, I don't believe that (given time) most bereaved parents actually do wish their lives over.