Next year's expansion of the criteria for medically assisted death will allow Canadians like Lisa Pauli, whose sole underlying condition is mental illness, the choice to die in this way.
My understanding is that it’s mostly a mix of in-the-moment and shortly-afterwards responses that range from instant regret to frustration to relief to hope, etc. Then there are those who fall back easily into despair, but they’re in the minority and there are usually very clear reasons they have a harder time recovering. I can tell you anecdotally from my own practice that while my patients have certainly minded the inconvenience and degradation of being hospitalized against their wills, of those who have been hospitalized over an actual suicide attempt (i.e. not merely the potential for one seen in intense suicidal ideation), none have complained about the care they received in the wake of said attempt. They know—in that instance—it’s appropriate.
I don’t have the access to professional papers that I used to, but this page from the Harvard School of Public Health should tell you something about what the literature says regarding suicide attempts and their likelihood of recurring.
I know this is anecdotal, but I’ve had a failed suicide attempt which I only survived with medical intervention and pretty much everything u/asparagus said above was spot on. I never had any regret from deciding after-the-fact that I wanted to live, it just never happened for me. The only regret I have is that it wasn’t able to work - because all of the fallout that came from it has been worse than what led me to that decision in the first place.
the attempt itself was something I had been thinking about for a while and prepared the items to do it with quite a bit before that day. but on the day it happened something had just boiled over, can’t even remember what it was for the life of me. so there’s an element of impulsiveness there, but all that did was set the date so to speak. it’s been around 3ish years since then and it’s kind of surprising how much of my time is spent thinking about it all still. from the moment I woke up in the ER to now there’s just this dread that is always present. any time I have difficulty with really anything now, I’m always just thinking about how I made the decision to not participate in any of this and I shouldn’t have to deal with it at all - and that itself makes me really bitter/jaded I think.
anyways just wanted to share because the person before you hit the nail on the head for what my experience with it all has been
My understanding is that it’s mostly a mix of in-the-moment and shortly-afterwards responses that range from instant regret to frustration to relief to hope, etc. Then there are those who fall back easily into despair, but they’re in the minority and there are usually very clear reasons they have a harder time recovering. I can tell you anecdotally from my own practice that while my patients have certainly minded the inconvenience and degradation of being hospitalized against their wills, of those who have been hospitalized over an actual suicide attempt (i.e. not merely the potential for one seen in intense suicidal ideation), none have complained about the care they received in the wake of said attempt. They know—in that instance—it’s appropriate.
I don’t have the access to professional papers that I used to, but this page from the Harvard School of Public Health should tell you something about what the literature says regarding suicide attempts and their likelihood of recurring.
I know this is anecdotal, but I’ve had a failed suicide attempt which I only survived with medical intervention and pretty much everything u/asparagus said above was spot on. I never had any regret from deciding after-the-fact that I wanted to live, it just never happened for me. The only regret I have is that it wasn’t able to work - because all of the fallout that came from it has been worse than what led me to that decision in the first place.
the attempt itself was something I had been thinking about for a while and prepared the items to do it with quite a bit before that day. but on the day it happened something had just boiled over, can’t even remember what it was for the life of me. so there’s an element of impulsiveness there, but all that did was set the date so to speak. it’s been around 3ish years since then and it’s kind of surprising how much of my time is spent thinking about it all still. from the moment I woke up in the ER to now there’s just this dread that is always present. any time I have difficulty with really anything now, I’m always just thinking about how I made the decision to not participate in any of this and I shouldn’t have to deal with it at all - and that itself makes me really bitter/jaded I think.
anyways just wanted to share because the person before you hit the nail on the head for what my experience with it all has been