A touchy subject.

Because I wish to obtain Medical Assistance in Dying and because I post about it on social media, the algorithms keep filling my feed with posts that deal with M.A.i.D.

There are those who are convinced that the government’s intention with M.A.i.D. is to save money on mental health treatment by forcing people with mental illness to undergo M.A.i.D. instead of living on social assistance.

Others are convinced that the government is going to send white vans around in the cities of Canada to euthanize the homeless and the elderly.

One of the major problems that mental health care faces in Canada is that our general population is overwhelmed by American media. American media is dangerous in the fact that it pushes an imaginary economic reality that does not exist. Americans believe in low, low, low taxes. Which is why they have massive infrastructure problems, crappy schools, non-existent social safety nets, and almost non-existent health care. That, and America’s defence spending is completely out of control.

Fellow Canadians see the low taxes that Americans pay, and so they demand from our governments that we pay the same stupidly low taxes up here as they do down there.

Which is why our health care is crumbling. Which is why mental health care is almost non-existent. And which is why mental illness is vilified as being due to laziness and poor personal choices.

America has had homeless mentally ill people wandering the streets and living in tents on the street for years, like since back in the ’70s and ’80s. And this problem is coming up to Canada.

American style austerity is a cancer.

But Canadians love their low, low taxes and their cheap imported goods, so don’t look for any kind of funding increases any time soon.

A lot of disabled rights groups and mental health rights groups want mental illness yanked as one of the criteria for being able to access Medical Assistance in Dying.

But the problem with doing so is that you deny people such as me the right to end our lives as we see fit. You also ensure that I suffer mental pain for 10, 20, or even 30 more years.

Better mental health funding wouldn’t have done anything for me. As I’ve said before, I was a “dirty little secret” and my lack of mental health treatment was due to the desire for secrets to be kept from the Canadian public. No amount of public mental health funding was going to change that.

And having the government of Canada rescind the right of Canadians such as myself to avail ourselves to a humane and painless death at the time of our choosing isn’t going to increase the funding for mental health treatment and housing for persons with mental illness.

To get Canada on track again, Canadians would have to eschew American style disaster capitalism and embrace full democratic socialism. Canadians would have to learn to understand that higher taxes do lead to overall better outcomes as any of the Nordic or Scandinavian countries can attest.

But changes like that would take years, especially when you consider how much money American right wing think tanks pump into Canada on a yearly basis to try to convert us into a mini-USA.

I don’t know what the solution is for the time being.

As I’ve said, I make my application in March of this year. Hopefully I get my two assessments by no later than July. So hopefully I can undergo my procedure and cease living sometime in December of 2024 or early 2025.

I don’t want to be forced to suffer as a casualty in someone else’s war.

Banning M.A.i.D. for mental illness isn’t going to cause 500k new low income houses to be built.

Banning M.A.i.D. for mental illness isn’t going to cause 500k new assisted living homes to be built.

Banning M.A.i.D. for mental illness isn’t going to give those living with disabilities or mental illness $100k in yearly income assistance.

But banning M.A.i.D. for mental illness will prolong the suffering that persons like me have to endure, and I would envision that it would increase the number of suicide attempts and suicides as persons try to escape their pain and torment.

I don’t envy the struggle the mental health and disability advocates face, but please don’t fuck with my ability to die peacefully and painlessly.