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[GlyphGryph]

It's like having gone through spinal paralysis and coming to the conclusion that "all those lameys should just pull themselves together and start walking, that's what I did". Whatever little inconveniencing bouts of sadness you suffered from, it sure wasn't depression.

Admittedly, I'm sure there's a good chance at least someone has come through spinal paralysis with that sort of attitude - people do occasionally recover, after all, with sufficient effort and loads of luck, and one should never underestimate the ability of people to assumed "I did it so it shouldn't be hard for other people to do it either" for whatever reason. Anecdotes as generalities, right?

[Eagleon]

It's like having gone through spinal paralysis and coming to the conclusion that "all those lameys should just pull themselves together and start walking, that's what I did". Whatever little inconveniencing bouts of sadness you suffered from, it sure wasn't depression.

Admittedly, I'm sure there's a good chance at least someone has come through spinal paralysis with that sort of attitude - people do occasionally recover, after all, with sufficient effort and loads of luck, and one should never underestimate the ability of people to assumed "I did it so it shouldn't be hard for other people to do it either" for whatever reason. Anecdotes as generalities, right?

It's actually a pretty common way of dealing with depression, albeit often ineffective. Dismissing it as trivial weakens it for a while as a force in your life, whereas the constant barrage of support, therapy, and medication can quickly dominate your life and mindset if it's overdone, so that you're perpetually "recovering" without real hope of recovery (a state which is never really explained). People do the same thing for stopping smoking. Really, the strength needed to deal with it constructively does have to come from the person, not his therapists, so it's a step in the right direction.

For death, I have to agree with people that would want to keep living. 'Quality of life' is a meaningless generalism, like measuring a book by a sliding bar of 'happy reading'. Quality of life isn't always about being happy or comfortable. There are things that I'd want to finish before dying, and pain is horrible and bad, yes, but I couldn't stand to give up on them. If I couldn't write or program, perhaps (Prachett has my sympathies - Alzheimers is my worse than death), but I'm the type that would be stubborn enough to push through a couple of years of medical torture. I don't think I could tell other people to do the same, though.

[GlyphGryph]

I think there's a difference though - for many of these people and conditions, treatment essentially means you give up enormous amounts of time you could be spending doing the stuff you're describing for the (very slight) chance of getting a few more weeks of life (most of which you'll probably spend in no shape to do anything productive).

This isn't abnormal for terminal illnesses.

One would argue in many of these cases going for treatment would be more akin to giving up on them than using what time you can to work towards them. And in many cases, you would be giving up on them either way, whether you like it or not. Is it just that you're uncomfortable with the idea of leaving these things unfinished, and you've got to fight for the chance to complete them, however slim?

[Eagleon]

I want to leave as much behind that'll represent me as possible, and maybe give some enjoyment to others after I'm gone. I suppose if the payoff were slim (months of sedation for a month or two of extra work, versus simply working on what I like for a month or two and not worrying about it), I'd consider just avoiding treatment. But very often the timeframes are a rough guess, and when quality of life is discussed it isn't taken into account that someone might be willing to suffer with less anesthesia to keep living. You can learn to deal with pain, you can learn to deal with throwing up every time you eat after chemo, or being confined to a hospital and fed intravenously because you lack a stomach or whatever horrific nightmare scenario you can come up with. People have and will continue to do so right up until protocetaceans literally digest our infrastructure with their psuedoorganic cybernetic drysuits and take over the solar system with ill rhymes and krill underlings. It sounds cocky, but I'm confident I could because my work is that important to me. Not finishing some of it would bother me (until I died), but not as much as being prevented from trying because someone else considers a medical procedure too drastic to put someone through.

[darkrider2]

A quote from Percy Williams Bridgman, because I agree with glyphgryph strongly.

"It isn't decent for society to make a man do this thing himself. Probably this is the last day I will be able to do it myself."

(He shot himself after having cancer for a while)

It is disturbing to me in how much society is set in the idea that living is always, always better than death. I would be perfectly fine with this if a person believed it, but the fact that it gets imposed on the ill and the dying in the healthcare system on a regular basis (in many cases where the dying can't argue for themselves) is VERY disturbing to me.

And this can be said about many issues within modern society, but damnit I want to choose for myself and not have other people tell me what I want! FFS.

[Zangi]

Noone lives forever, but when you have a choice, it is your right to choose how you will go in the end.  That is my opinion.

Do you cling to life?  To fight all the way, to eek out another day?
Do you go out and do things you would never have done while you still can?
Do you look back and reminisce?  Will you find regret?
Do you look forward, ride out your days in contentment or happiness?
Do you you try to go out with a bang?
Do you quietly wait for your time to come?
Do you consider the cost to those close to you when you make your decision?

In the end, face to face, eye to eye with it.  Defiance? Dignity? Panic? Submission? Grace?

[Pnx]

Every time I see this thread title I think it's going to be about a particular revolving door main character in a particular popular science fiction TV show.

[Darvi]

Every time I see this thread title I think it's going to be about a particular revolving door main character in a particular popular science fiction TV show.

:O

Stop being me.