Zoraya ter Beek struggled with her mental health ever since she was a little girl.
Chronic depression, anxiety and trauma were constants in her childhood and adolescent years. She endured extreme bullying,and eventually began dressing in goth clothing in an attempt to scare her tormentors into leaving her alone.
At 21, she was diagnosed with autism, a diagnosis she struggled with. So much so, that by the time she was 22, she wore a ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ tag around her neck.
Although ter Beek was physically healthy, she told The Free Press that she’d been hoping her life would end long before she wore the tag.
When she turned 18, ter Beek moved in with her boyfriend, Stein, who was ten years older than her. Her parents disapproved, prompting an estrangement that included her three sisters, as well as her parents.
Ter Beek’s partner urged her to seek help to regain control of her mental health, and she did. Ter Beek said she tried everything. She regularly saw a psychiatrist and even tried electroconvulsive therapy that involves electric currents jolting the brain. She endured this process 33 times.
But, nothing changed. And after her last treatment in 2020, ter Beek says her psychiatrist told her there was nothing more they could do. “It’s never going to get any better,” her psychiatrist reportedly said.
By December that year, ter Beek had applied to the Netherlands’ Euthanasia Expertise Centre (ECT).
In May, ter Beek was approved for physician-assisted dying on the grounds of unbearable mental suffering. The decision came three and a half years after she first applied, and was approved under a law passed in the Netherlands in 2022 that granted eligibility to people experiencing “unbearable suffering with no prospect of improvement”.
Because ter Beek is physically healthy, her case caused global controversy, and debate raged around whether or not people with psychiatric illnesses should be eligible.
For ter Beek though, her decision was final, and made with the support of her partner, who she requested be by her side at the time, though she reportedly told him it was okay if he needed to leave the room before the moment of death.
On May 22, ter Beek’s friend, Martin, announced her death via social media. A medical team came to her home, gave her a sedative, and waited until she was in a coma before administering drugs to stop her heart.
She was 29 years old.
Source: Zoraya was physically healthy. Doctors helped her die.