title: Ready to give up on life: The lived experience of elderly people who feel life is completed and no longer worth living.
abstract: In the Netherlands, there has been much debate on the question whether elderly people over 70 who are tired of life and who consider their life to be completed, should have legal options to ask for assisted dying. So far there has been little research into the experiences of these elderly people. In order to develop deliberate policy and care that targets this group of elderly people, it is necessary to understand their lifeworld. The aim of this paper is to describe the phenomenon 'life is completed and no longer worth living' from a lifeworld perspective, as it is lived and experienced by elderly people. Between April to December 2013, we conducted 25 in-depth interviews. A reflective lifeworld research design, drawing on the phenomenological tradition, was used during the data gathering and data analysis. The essential meaning of the phenomenon is understood as 'a tangle of inability and unwillingness to connect to one's actual life', characterized by a permanently lived tension: daily experiences seem incompatible with people's expectations of life and their idea of whom they are. While feeling more and more disconnected to life, a yearning desire to end life is strengthened. The experience is further explicated in its five constituents: 1) a sense of aching loneliness; 2) the pain of not mattering; 3) the inability to express oneself; 4) multidimensional tiredness; and 5) a sense of aversion towards feared dependence. This article provides evocative and empathic lifeworld descriptions contributing to a deeper understanding of these elderly people and raises questions about a close association between death wishes and depression in this sample.
authors.affiliation: University of Humanistic Studies, Kromme Nieuwegracht 29, 3512 HD Utrecht, The Netherlands. Electronic address: els.vanwijngaarden@phd.uvh.nl.
authors.forename: Els
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: van Wijngaarden
authors.affiliation: University of Humanistic Studies (idem), The Netherlands. Electronic address: C.Leget@UvH.nl.
authors.forename: Carlo
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Leget
authors.affiliation: University of Humanistic Studies (idem), The Netherlands. Electronic address: A.Goossensen@UvH.nl.
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Goossensen
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged / Q000523:psychology*; D000369:Aged, 80 and over / Q000523:psychology*; D001293:Attitude to Death; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008132:Loneliness / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D009426:Netherlands; D036301:Qualitative Research; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology
keywords: Assisted dying; Assisted suicide; Elderly people; Existential suffering; Qualitative phenomenological research; Self-directed death; The Netherlands; Wish to die