goats are invisible unless lasers

scenario: someone who you’re really close to is planning on committing suicide. everything is pretty much set and they ask you if you could be with them before/as they go through with it so they may leave the world with at least a little bit of love and comfort. of course you don’t want them to go through with it, but you also believe in people’s right autonomy (like with medical euthanasia). the method this person is planning on using is reversible with interception, they would be unconscious and unaware until it’s already reversed. this person who you love says that if you’re going to intervene to not even bother being there. they say that by reversing it you are forcing them to live a life of suffering even if it gets better at some vague point in the future, that (since you must call paramedics) you will be actually making their present circumstances worse as they will be placed in a mandatory psychiatric hold. (their last psychiatric hospitalization was traumatic and caused more harm than good) thus, suggesting that you would stop it means that they will not share the exact time and place they plan on doing it. if you lie and reverse it anyways, they will not forgive you, that it’s selfish and that it’s more important for you to feel good about yourself than to finally allow them to have relief from a life of agony. you absolutely want to be there when they die with all the love you have if that’s something that must happen, but knowing you let them is something that will forever haunt you.

a very common thing i see posited is the idea that historically, fathers could not both love their daughters and see them as their personal property to dispose of as they saw fit, and i think it comes from this difficulty people have in understanding that a parent can be affectionate and loving in many ways, but also put their own desires before that of their child/have misogynistic views about women's roles in society.

Someone commented on this post recently, which made me want to clarify something.

Have you ever climbed a tree?

there is something very sad and humiliating about having to desperately beg doctors and family members to understand that involuntary institutionalization does not in fact help your mental health, knowing your perspective will always be dismissed at the end of the day

it's awful that researchers are only now starting to take this perspective seriously, but there is a small but growing body of study supporting exactly what patients have been saying about psychiatric incarceration. one study in particular, from Allegheny county in Pennsylvania, offers a damning analysis of involuntary psychiatric commitments: