It’s a very personal thing, certainly varied by the individual in myriad ways. The big factors in that equation could be viewed allegorically as a culinary recipe, with similar ingredients from the different food groups substituted for flavor, consistency and caloric content. I alluded to how that works for me at the end of the ECHCS feedback post. Please allow me to break it down here, just to be very clear.
The VA gave me two things, and took one away. They gave me alot of un-anticipated pain and disability(PD), both physical and emotional. During the discovery phase lasting many months, the 2nd ingredient, cognitive dissonance (CD), was mixed in. That can really fuck with a person’s head after awhile. Then towards the end of my ECHCS relationship, to seemingly sort of seal the deal, they took away any hope for relief.
Mix those three things in somebody’s head, and you have a viable recipe for suicide brewing. The problem with the recipe allegory is when converted to the simpler, colder mathematical equation, the result solved for on the right can be only one of two things:
PD + CD + Hope = Life
PD + CD – Hope = Death
I hope that spells it out clearly enough for anyone who might be interested.