The case of Zoraya ter Beeke, a 29-year-old Dutch woman, became known worldwide last April after telling her story in The Free Press. She lives in a house with her two cats and her boyfriend Stein, who is 40 years old and whom she claims to be in love with. However, she has requested euthanasia and has recently received final authorization, so she is scheduled to die “in the coming weeks.”
Despite being in good physical health, Ter Beek suffers from severe depression, autism and borderline personality disorder, and his doctor already told him that after trying everything, there was nothing more they could do. That she was never going to get better. Hence her decision to die.
As she herself told a few weeks ago, it was from the age of 13 when she turned out to be different: she often self-harmed and after not receiving any diagnosis or treatment, she turned to ecstasy. “While others go crazy, it gave me peace,” she declared.
Three years later, at 16, seeing that her situation was not changing, she thought about taking her own life and, years later, she became a member of the association that defends the right to euthanasia in the Netherlands, the first country to legalize it. , in 2002, and where in 2022 deaths by assisted suicide represented 5.1% of the total for that year.
In addition, by being part of that association, she received a medical medal that she has since worn around her neck with her photo and a message, “Do not resuscitate,” so that in the event of an accident or cardiac arrest, no one will try to return her to the life.
Finally, in 2015, he received a diagnosis – chronic depression, with an abnormality on the autism spectrum – and began pharmacological treatment, but no medication worked, nor did an examination to look for neurological alterations. It was at the age of 22 when he decided that he did not want to continue living like this.
After the final authorization was recently confirmed, Zoraya ter Beeke already has planned how she wants her death to be: on the sofa at home and without music, she does not want a funeral but she does want to be cremated and, later, for her boyfriend to scatter her ashes in a place in a forest in Oldenzaal, near the border with Germany, where they live.
Her mother, for her part, knows her daughter’s decision and believes that euthanasia is better than Zoraya ending up taking her own life by throwing herself onto the train tracks.
