31-year-old David Mulder had completed his psychological treatment and died in October due to euthanasia. It was a long and difficult process. His mother Caroline Mulder is a member of the KEA Foundation to tell her son’s story. The foundation wants to increase understanding, knowledge about and the possibility of euthanasia on psychological grounds.
David has always found life difficult. As a 4-year-old, he threw himself down the stairs twice. His parents then sought help from a child psychiatrist. He saw a very vulnerable and sad child. Tests showed that he was gifted.
David received play therapy and, at the age of 7, a low dose of Prozac for his depression. “I then had to press that into his porridge with a syringe in the morning. We felt this medicine supported him.” Halfway through primary school, David was doing better and was able to stop taking Prozac.”
At the end of primary school, David became more depressed. He was dreading going to high school. He stopped eating and cut himself. He was given Prozac again. and psychological help. It didn’t help enough. “At the age of 15 he was so suicidal that he was forcibly admitted,” says his mother Caroline. “Also to relieve us as a family. Because we couldn’t take it anymore.” He then received housing assistance and started living on his own.
Tried everything
In his life, David has tried everything in the field of therapy, including cognitive therapy and talk therapy. How to deal with depressive thoughts, mindfulness, cognitive behavioral therapy, shock therapy and ketamine treatment. He also received medication such as lithium and MAO inhibitors.
He now had his girlfriend Mariël and he did everything for her. “David said: I don’t need to get better as long as it becomes more bearable,” says Caroline. “Then I will live.” But all therapy and medication did not help David.
Completely treated
Ultimately, his treatment was finished and David wanted euthanasia. Unfortunately, his psychiatrist did not want to perform euthanasia on him when he requested this. He then decided to stop eating and drinking in December and die this way.
To his mother’s horror: “We have been dreading death all year like a block of concrete.” As a community nurse, Caroline has been to many deathbeds of people who are dying. “They were all old people who were already emaciated. They slid away nicely. But for such a young man, that takes weeks.”
But last summer it turned out that it was no longer possible. David was very depressed and he was actually no longer able to make contacts properly. It was very difficult for Mariel. They still went on holiday together, but he was just stressed. And back home he lay on the couch, couldn’t sleep anymore and was stiff from stress.
Mariël told him he didn’t have to wait until December. This relieved David. He felt like he had regained control and decided to stop living in September.
Still euthanasia
Because David wanted to show the process of mortification and the problems that mentally exhausted people encountered, he contacted Harlingen psychiatrist Menno Oosterhoff. Oosterhoff had indicated in advance that he could not perform euthanasia because he was already very busy with this. But this was not David’s goal.
Photo: Meranda Spanjer
After the conversation, Oosterhoff called to say that he would still like to help David. “I was freaking out. And then I noticed that I had already given it a place that he was going to die.” On October 4, David received the euthanasia he had longed for for so long, in the presence of his loved ones.
Space, peace and sadness
His mother looks back on the euthanasia process with a positive feeling. “I’m in the phase of relief that it happened this way. And is it sincere that I feel better than before? I’ve been grieving all year. We did everything with David for the last time. Christmas was very intense last year, just like David’s last birthday. Now there is a lot of space and peace within me. And also sadness. I miss him, I cry a lot. But I still feel better than last year.”
Mission KEA Foundation
The KEA Foundation was founded last year thanks to the book ‘Let me go’ that psychiatrist Kit Vanmechelen wrote together with psychiatrist Menno Oosterhoff. The book also contains diary fragments from Esther Beukema, who suffered from serious psychological complaints. She was eventually euthanized after her treatment was complete.
“People came to us after reading the book to tell their stories,” says Vanmechelen. “They have been rejected by the Euthanasia Expertise Center (EE) and don’t know what to do. Or they are relatives of loved ones who died by suicide or euthanasia.
“We wondered what we could do for these people. That is why the KEA Foundation was set up and the website has been up and running since October 28 online. The foundation wants to increase understanding, knowledge about and the possibility of euthanasia for mental disorders.”
The foundation is not only for people who suffer unbearably and without hope of psychological suffering or for surviving relatives, but we also provide information to doctors about providing euthanasia. “We have set up a doctor network via a group app for doctors who might want to help, but don’t know how to start,” says Vanmechelen. “The app also contains experienced psychiatrists who already have experience with euthanasia and who then say: just call me.”
KEA is not a new EE
Vanmechelen emphasizes that the foundation does not perform euthanasia. “We don’t want to become a new EE. We will then have 300 people on the waiting list in no time. What we can do for these people who register is provide information about, for example, a buddy system.
The volunteers affiliated with the foundation are almost all people who have lost someone to suicide or euthanasia. According to Vanmechelen, they have a mission. “The relatives wish that their loved one was the last to die by suicide. And those relatives who have lost someone through euthanasia say: this was good. But what a struggle it has been to get it to this point.”
They have actually received a bit of an assignment or message from their deceased relative: tell my story so that it is not lost. And that society will better understand euthanasia for psychological suffering,” says Vanmechelen. “That people after them have to struggle for less time to get this far.”
2023-12-30 13:01:06
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