On Thursday, February 2, we learned that the federal government has decided to postpone the date of access to medical assistance in dying for the sole reason of mental illness by one year.1as of March 17, 2024. Federal Justice Minister David Lametti said, “We recognize that some Canadians may be frustrated and disappointed with the extension [du délai]. »
I can tell you that there is at least one Canadian living with a serious and persistent illness who is relieved of it. And I’m not the only one. I must say that I deplore the lack of space given to the voices of people living with mental illness in the reports on medical assistance in dying (MAID), regardless of their opinion on this subject. We mainly hear from doctors, psychiatrists, lawyers and politicians. It is necessary, yes, but what about the people directly affected by this law?
I am one of those people. I am a clinical psychologist and university professor. My areas of expertise are mental health and suicide prevention. And I’ve been living with serious mental illness for at least the last 23 years, if not more. I only found out in May 2021 that I have bipolar disorder. Before that, the doctors had all diagnosed me with recurrent major depressive disorder. You know, bipolar II disorder is very difficult to diagnose.
Since I didn’t have the right diagnosis, I didn’t receive the right treatment. For 21 years.
For 21 years, I have experienced moments of suffering so intense that there are no words strong enough to describe it. I didn’t understand what was happening to me, as I was following prescribed treatments to the letter, medications, psychotherapy, support groups and later self-management groups for depression and self-esteem. I did everything. But the depression came back to see me regularly.
The last time, in March-April 2021, I was no longer able to. I was home alone. I was crying with sadness and rage lying on the floor in my room. I was sobbing, screaming on my hardwood floor. It was not beautiful to live or to see. I didn’t care if the neighbors heard me. I was in pain, I wanted to get out of my body. This evil is both psychological and physical. I wanted it to stop there, now. I wanted to die so that the suffering would stop. I was suicidal.
If MAID for mental illness had existed at that time, not only would I have said yes, but I would have been deemed eligible for it. But she wasn’t.
I called the suicide prevention center, my family doctor. I was found a psychiatrist, the correct diagnosis was made and the correct treatment started in May 2021. Not everything has been rosy in my life since then, but I am alive, slowly rebuilding myself with highs ( less highs) and lows (less lows).
And here I am today writing this text to try to make our federal government understand, once again, that allowing access to MAID for the sole reason of mental illness would facilitate access suicide to vulnerable people, people like me. It’s actually a state-sanctioned form of suicide. Minister Lametti himself said that it is a kind of suicide (a species of suicide).
Suicide. The elephant in the room. Why am I saying this? Because to date, there is no empirically validated tool, method, interview or test allowing us to differentiate the suffering of a person living with a mental illness who wants to die by suicide from that of a person living with a mental illness who wants to die by medical assistance in dying. Remember that 90% of people who die by suicide have a mental illness2. It is enormous. So where do you draw the line between suicide and physician-assisted dying for people living with mental illness? Regardless of the framework and security measures put in place, we cannot draw a line that does not exist.
On February 5 began the 33e Suicide Prevention Week3 with the theme: Prevention is better than death. I love this slogan. I find it very telling. I think that the federal government should take inspiration from this and think about the means to put in place to really reduce the suffering of people living with a mental illness. Because physician-assisted dying or – in Minister Lametti’s words – some kind of suicide is not an option.
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