Sex abuse victim in her 20s allowed by DOCTORS to choose euthanasia due to ‘incurable’ PTSD
WTF…. This has left me speechless and utterly despondent — to think that DOCTORS would write a young woman off like this and allow her to kill herself!
My heart cries for the agony the woman was in, her suffering was overwhelmingly suffocating, with nothing but pain and trauma facing her in the future as her experiences have embedded themselves into the DNA of every single cell in her body. The memories and fear blinding her vision to the point of hallucinations. The shame and guilt shutting down her self preservation and the self loathing denying herself the right to food and nourishment.
By all things Holy on this planet — how could professionals such as DOCTORS, who are SWORN to protect their patients not be that nurturer for her, at her time of dire need?
I feel this girls pain, for that is what she was, a girl! She may have been in years a young woman in her 20’s but her experiences have ensured that she stayed a girl and was dealing with these agonising memories as a girl.
The little five year old, or 10 year old, or 15 year old in her was CRYING, SCREAMING — for God’s sake — for help, for healing, for love and unconditional, un-judgemental compassion!
And what did we do as a society — we killed her! we put her down like vermin!
We treated her as badly as her abuser did.
He denied her the right to life and so did we — facilitated by professional doctors!
As I read this story when it broke yesterday I was transported back 18 years ago when I was in the midst of my own hell. When I was overwhelmingly being suffocated by my memories, with nothing but pain and trauma facing my future as my experiences embedded themselves into the DNA of every single cell in my body. The memories and fear blinding my vision to the point of hallucinations. The shame and guilt shutting down my self preservation and the self loathing denying myself the right to life.
This was my reality having escaped almost two decades of horrendous abuse where I was isolated and imprisoned from society, beaten, drugged, humiliated, shot, stabbed, made pregnant and endured brutal home abortions until I escaped barely only with the clothes on my back — alone into the big world — with no one to support me or help me.
I made it in the world. I ended up in a paradise with friends, sports and work but then the mask faded — the mask that I had formed as I PRETENDED to be normal. What revealed itself as that mask faded away was sheer horror and ugliness.
During that time I took numerous overdoses, I lived on the edge, extremely dangerously where I invited more physical abuse, more rapes. There was danger in everything I did. My ‘friends’ were taking bets that I would not survive 1999!
My ‘loved ones’ abandoned me. Because they were unable to handle my incessant self destruction, they could not understand my hallucinations that drove me to madness — so doctors and psychologists had me sectioned on many occasions.
I had no idea where it was all going. All I knew was that getting from one day to the next felt like climbing Everest each and every day. I was beyond caring about life. In fact slipping into death from a coma induced by a drug overdose was peaceful. The perverseness is that I felt I didn’t deserve that peace of death! So I remained in this life of suffering and agony until I had lost every single thing — everything. I was at my lowest point. All veils and masks had gone and all there was left was the rawness that was ME.
A body of an adult with the mind of a girl and as I took that last overdose I had to battle with my body not to throw up, for the first time ever it wanted to reject the poison I was putting into it. I slipped into that cushioning bliss of a coma and disappeared. To wake up a few days later with a knowing that there was hope!
That was my last overdose, from that day I never did anything that was self destructive and I started a long and excruciatingly hard journey to finding inner peace and healing.
And I did find that peace and healing. Now just over 16 years since that overdose, my life is unrecognisable and is surrounded in love, joy and fun.
Sure, I have bad days, as I recall incidents and I feel the little girl in me hurt all over again — but these days pale in comparison to what I now call ‘My Mad Years’.
Was the journey worth it? HELL YES!
It is my intention that by relaying my story I offer hope to MILLIONS of young women and men who are battling and suffering with the after affects of child sexual abuse!
Please do not take this horrendous act by so called professionals as anything but a shocking despicable lack of understanding and insight.
I say this with the complete understanding that I did not know this young woman, I have never met her, I do not know the full details of her experiences — I have not walked in her shoes!
But I have walked in mine — and I know that my loved ones, friends and professionals wrote me off!
To them I was a lost cause, doomed and death was an inevitability — and for some I am sure, to their relief.
I don’t hold any anger to those that gave up on me, as I understand how utterly powerless they must have felt — it is not an easy ‘fall out’ to handle for us who have experienced child sexual abuse and for those who we surround ourselves with as we try and learn to survive.
In my opinion, as a society we still don’t have a grasp on the fall out from child sexual abuse — it is the most debilitating and horrific form of abuse to recover from and is something that gets into our DNA and affects every cell in our body — hence the road to healing is a long one.
But take solace in the fact that SO many amazing men and women in society have achieved greatness and are truly inspirational having taken this road — look at Oprah!!
