Zoraya ter Beek is from the Netherlands, she is 28 years old, in good physical health, and lives in a house with two cats and her boyfriend, Stein, a 40-year-old computer programmer whom she has known since she was 17, and who in several interviews assures that she is in love with him. Apparently, a happy life like that of any other young person of his age, but which will end voluntarily at the beginning of May, after the Netherlands has authorized euthanasia.
It will be on the couch at home and without music, he explained. Afterwards, she has asked to be cremated – she does not want a funeral – and for her boyfriend to scatter the ashes in a place in a forest in Oldenzaal, near the border with Germany, where they live, and which they have both already chosen , as she herself told The Free Press on April 1.
It is disconcerting because, in many of the photos dedicated to her these days by the media that echo her, she either appears affectionately embraced by her partner, or smiling and apparently happy. There is nothing to suspect that behind it there is someone who suffers so much for not wanting to continue living.
Since 2017, he has worn a medical medal around his neck with his photo and the following message: “Do not resuscitate”. Because 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 had always wanted to be a psychiatrist, but she was never able to finish school, let alone a university degree, due to – she claims – severe depression, autism and borderline personality disorder. The doctor told him one day that they had tried everything and there was nothing more they could do. That it would never get better. It was then that he decided to resort to euthanasia. “I’ve always been very clear that if I didn’t improve, I couldn’t move forward.”
She wears evil to the skin, literally. On Ter Beek’s right arm, a semicolon with a worn book. “This represents my depression, a story that is not yet over,” she explained herself in 2017 to the Dutch medium BN DeStem. The other pieces of the puzzle are tattooed on the other wrist, with the following text: “Different, no less”. This represents his autism. Two intertwined hearts represent his 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 have mental health problems, is an invitation to suicide. Others believe that cases like his highlight the excruciating pain of many young people with serious mental problems.
Zoraya’s case is also not the first of a young person who requests euthanasia due to mental problems. Aurelia Brouwers, 29, claimed it for almost ten years. Since she was a teenager she self-harmed, had anorexia and tried to commit suicide about 20 times. Doctors authorized euthanasia in January 2018.
When she was 13, Zoraya turned out to be different. He often self-harmed. A teacher referred her to behavioral experts, but she was unable to get a diagnosis or treatment. Then he came into contact with a boy who supplied him with ecstasy pills. “While others go crazy, it gave me peace,” he explained.
At 16, she thought of swallowing 25 of these pills to end everything, and three years later she became a member of the association that defends the right to euthanasia in the Netherlands. She became a member, she explained, mainly to obtain this anti-resuscitation medical medal.
Finally, in 2015 he received a diagnosis: chronic depression, with an anomaly on the autistic spectrum. Drug treatment began.
The first medicine did not work. Neither the second nor the third. Then, they did a scan to look for neurological changes. Nothing. And at the age of 22, she decided that enough was enough and that she didn’t want to continue living like this, because the situation, according to her, plunged her into unbearable physical and emotional distress.
Her mother knows her daughter’s decision and thinks it is better to resort to euthanasia before Zoraya ends up throwing herself on the train tracks.
