Warning
This email contains a description of a dying person ending their own life.
Good afternoon -
My name is Zoe. I’m one of many people who contributed to Dignity in Dying’s new research which uncovers what it is like to experience a dying loved one taking their own life, or trying to, as a last resort to control their suffering at the end of their life.
This new research - Last Resort: The hidden truth about how dying people take their own lives in the UK - brings to light stories like mine that have been shrouded in silence for so long.
The first time my mum tried to end her life it was a beautiful, beautiful sunny afternoon. I didn’t know. She was trying to protect us. She waited for everyone to be out of the house. She went into the garden with a picture of her mother and herself as a baby.
She’d written some suicide notes. She was very clear about not wanting to live through the end stages of terminal cancer. When I got home, I thought the amount of drugs she’d taken would have killed an elephant. But it didn’t work. After several hours we had to call an ambulance so that they could bring her into the house and she could be comfortable but then it all went wrong. When the ambulance arrived they wanted to take her to hospital. The doctor said that if she died there would be a police investigation, a coroner’s inquest and an autopsy. When the police arrived it was the same story.
If mum had died that night it would have been absolutely beautiful and perfect. The photo of her mum nearby, letters to her loved ones, the sun going down in her garden. But she had to live through another month of absolute hell.
We can and must do better than this for terminally ill people like my mum. Please, read Dignity in Dying’s new research today.
Thank you for reading about my story and for supporting Dignity in Dying’s work.
