Belgian chiming in: Belgian law is decent good when it comes to assisted suicide ("euthanasia"). In order to be able to go ahead with it, the patient has to be suffering ("unbearable suffering", per the law), either physically or mentally, and the situation has to be "hopeless".
In general, it's not something that can be done on a whim. You can't walk in to your doctor's office with a depression and come out in a body bag. There's a process, and you need the approval of multiple doctors (or shrinks).
As an addition, for those interested in the topic, Arte TV channel recently released a documentary filmed at an hospital in Liège (in Wallonia, Belgium) following a doctor practicing euthanasia. The documentary, available until December 2022, does not seem to be geo-blocked from the US:
According to other sources, this person with alleged PTSD bit certainly major depression showed capacity for improvement. She boarded planes and went later to Rome for a holiday, boarded plane and almost went for another. (I am trying to find the source in English.)
Now there also was the matter of an alternate specialized treatment group for people exactly in this attack by the university professor, treatment she refused. Additionally the reports tend to be spun to make it seem as if she outran the bomb - she was actually only in the same building far away from the blast.
Most importantly the duration of treatment was too short, she was young and we do not have information on whether modalities other than drugs were used, but if they were, they were too short term. And these drugs that have as black box side effects iatrogenic suicidality.
I believe standards of care were not adhered to. The two physicians writing the opinion were duped or negligent. Unfortunately in mental health cases a lot relies on the medical history which tends to be spotty, and reports from the patient.
Belgium is really special in allowing even very young people to access euthanasia. There was a case of a teen with just mental illness like previously. This girl here was 23.
I haven't heard PTSD characterized as a hopeless disorder before. It's horrible and deadly, but time heals, or at least softens, most such wounds. What could have convinced the psychiatrists that this time it was permanent?
I'm happy to hear that you've seemingly never met anyone who is in extreme psychological anguish. It's horrible. She'd been suffering since 2016. How much more would she have had to endure to appease your inner critic?
She'd been suffering from major depression, panic attacks and suicidality. PTSD was more than likely a convenient excuse for the symptoms for physicians. (Considering other pieces of life history.)
We are talking about a teen into 23 with improperly treated mental health issue here. People get treated for decades for this kind of thing, not 5 years of trying mostly new drugs with side effects to paper over it.
Indeed there are people who physically feel their depression so profoundly that they are barely able to lift themselves from their beds in the morning. Depression has nothing to do with being 'down in the dumps' and has to last more than 2 weeks before it becomes a clinical case.
While suicide might seem like a cowardly way out to some, there are other sufferers who choose to take their chances with electro-shock therapy, which has experienced rejuvenated interest over the past 20 years. It should be clear, however, that anyone pursuing it has exhausted all over treatment and is still suffering to some great extent.
> In general, tabloid newspapers, such as The Sun, Daily Mirror, the Daily Mail (see also the February 2017 RFC discussing its validity), equivalent television shows, should be used with caution, especially if they are making sensational claims.
In general, it's not something that can be done on a whim. You can't walk in to your doctor's office with a depression and come out in a body bag. There's a process, and you need the approval of multiple doctors (or shrinks).