“Which is Worse: Suffering or Death?” The young woman on the playing floor asks the question calmly, openly. She sits on a simple plastic chair, which gives the feeling of a throne because of the protruding ferns, in front of a wall full of flowers. On her lap lies the book from which she reads her text. Only the scars on her arms betray that life is hard for her, and that she is struggling with depression because of her ‘gift’.
Anouk van Kampen (22) tells in The gift, the new performance by Alexandra Broeder, extensive and vulnerable about her struggle with life, the taboo on voluntary termination of life and her compulsive disorder, which she herself calls a gift. It is one of the many interesting perspective shifts she offers in her text (written by Broeder based on conversations with Anouk): instead of her loved ones dying if she doesn’t perform certain actions, they stay alive if she does. . It doesn’t lessen the pain of being constantly responsible for the lives of everyone she loves, and the unbearableness of her gift is the main reason Anouk wants to take his own life.
Also read this interview with Anouk van Kampen: ‘I want more people to know that people want to die’
The sober, static staging of the monologue contributes to the impact: from the first moment Anouk starts talking, there is silence. It is very moving to hear such a young person talk about her desire to die, and as a spectator you are confronted with your own standards of life and death: can someone completely decide for themselves when her life is finished? When is psychological suffering a solvable ‘disorder’ and when is it inextricably linked to one’s identity? When Anouk indicates that she cannot and does not want to imagine her life without her gift, the question turns out to be unsolvable.
Psychiatrist
The difficulty of the issue is acknowledged by (child and youth) psychiatrist Menno Oosterhoff, who is invited on stage by Anouk halfway through the monologue, together with Broeder and dramaturg Berthe Spoelstra. Oosterhoff regularly gives second opinions requests for euthanasia, and that creates major dilemmas. “As people we are very afraid of death, there is an enormous taboo on euthanasia in psychological suffering. Some of your doubts disappear when you talk to someone and really listen to their wishes – but the younger someone is, the harder it becomes to accept a death wish. Can you go by what someone wants? If someone has a depressive psychosis, do you speak to the person themselves?”
Taboo
Anouk herself regularly encounters this taboo. “When I talk to people, they almost always start mentioning possible bright spots in life, or saying that I’m still young and it will all get better. But it doesn’t get any better: even when I feel good, I still want to die.”
Oosterhoff: “We think it is easier to recover from a mental illness than from physical suffering, but your mind is just as difficult to change as your thyroid function.”
The last word belongs to Anouk. When the others have left the playing floor again, she is left alone, still sitting on her throne. “What is it about life that everyone must be kept in it?” After everything in The gift has emerged, that question is no longer so easy to answer.
Talking about suicide You can contact the national helpline 113 Suicide Prevention. Phone 0800-0113 or www.113.nl