Zoraya ter Beek is Dutch, she is 28 years old, she is in good physical health and lives in a house, with her two cats and her boyfriend Stein, a 40-year-old computer programmer whom she has known since she was 17, and of whom on several occasions interviews she assures that she is in love. Apparently, a happy life like that of any other young woman her age, but one that she will voluntarily end at the beginning of next May, after the Netherlands has authorized her euthanasia.
It will be on the sofa at home and without music, he explained. Afterwards, she asked to be cremated – she does not want a funeral – and for her boyfriend to spread her ashes in a place in a forest in Oldenzaal, near the border with Germany, the town where they live, and which both have already chosen, according to her. same to The Free Press, on April 1.
It is disconcerting because in many of the photos, which these days are dedicated to her by the media that echo her decision, she appears affectionately hugging her partner, smiling and (apparently happy). There is nothing to suspect that behind it there is someone who suffers so much as to wish not to continue living.
Since 2017, she has worn a medical medal around her neck with her photo and the message “Do not resuscitate,” so that if she suffers an accident or cardiac arrest, no one will try to bring her back to life. She wants to die but why?
Zoraya ter Beek always wanted to be a psychiatrist, but she was never able to finish school, much less begin a university degree due to – as she herself claims – her severe depression, her autism, and her borderline personality disorder. Her own doctor one day told her that they had tried everything and that there was nothing more they could do. That she was never going to get better. It was then that she decided to resort to euthanasia. “I was always very clear that if she didn’t improve, she couldn’t continue.”
She shows off her troubles, literally. On Ter Beek’s right arm, a semicolon with a worn book. “That represents my depression, a story that is not yet finished,” she explained in 2017 in the Dutch media BN DeStem. The other pieces of the puzzle are tattooed on the other wrist, with the text “Different, not less.” That represents her autism. Two intertwined hearts represent her relationship with Stein. “A friend helps a lot. Without him I wouldn’t be here.”
The Netherlands was the first country to legalize euthanasia in 2002. In 2022, deaths by assisted suicide represented 5.1% of all deaths recorded in this country. The case of Zoraya ter Beek has revived the debate about the limits of this practice. There are those who believe that allowing access to young people with – in principle – their whole lives ahead of them and who are physically healthy, even if they suffer from mental health problems, is an invitation to suicide. Others believe that cases like theirs highlight the unbearable pain of many young people with severe mental problems.
Zoraya’s case is not the first case of a young person requesting euthanasia due to psychological problems. Aurelia Brouwers, 29, claimed her for almost 10 years. Since she was a teenager she self-harmed, suffered from anorexia and attempted suicide about 20 times. Doctors authorized her euthanasia in January 2018.
When she was 13, Zoraya turned out to be different. She often self-harmed. A teacher sent her to consult behavioral experts, but she did not get a diagnosis or treatment. She then came into contact with a boy who supplied her with ecstasy pills. “While others go crazy, it gave me peace,” she said.
At 16, she thought about swallowing 25 of those pills to end it all and three years later she became a member of the association that, in the Netherlands, defends the right to euthanasia. She did it mostly, she explained, to get that anti-resuscitation medical medal.
Finally, in 2015, he received a diagnosis: chronic depression, with an abnormality on the autism spectrum. She started pharmacological treatment.
First a medication, it didn’t work. Neither a second nor a third. Next, an examination to look for neurological alterations. Nothing. And at the age of 22 she decided that enough was enough and that she did not want to continue living like this, because the situation, always according to her testimony, plunged her into unbearable physical and emotional anguish.
Her mother knows about her daughter’s decision and believes that euthanasia is better than Zoraya ending up throwing herself on the train tracks.
