How do you guys feel about assisted suicide?

[slackmaster]

53. Thank you for your kind words

I think my friend was several years beyond any possibility of being helped.

One of the biggest problems with treating a major mental disorder is that except under extraordinary circumstances in which a person can be compelled by a court of law to get treatment, the patient always has the right to refuse to be treated.

I know that my friend had developed a very negative attitude about psychiatric medications. I have no doubt that during her stay at the county mental hospital she at the very least put up a great deal of resistance to taking any pills. She was given a prescription for some kind of antidepressant, which she didn't take; and an appointment with a specialty psychiatric clinic, which she blew off.

Another sad aspect of the situation is that she bought the gun with which she shot herself, just 10 days BEFORE her involuntary commitment. She picked it up after California's mandatory 10-day wait on the day that police were called because an alert friend saw that she was setting things up for her death, including an obvious suicide note. The police who picked her up didn't find the weapon, neither did the people who searched through her personal belongings (for drugs or weapons) while she was locked up. We survivors believe it was probably hidden in the trunk of her car, where nobody thought to search.

Had she attempted to buy the gun after being released from the hospital, she could not have legally acquired it. But I am sure that in the long run she would have found a way to end her life even without it.