Der lange Atem – Ein Dokumentarfilm-Exposé über Systemfehler und Autonomie
This document is the treatment for a 90-minute documentary film (written in 2021 by Dietmar Paul), which was not realized in this form. However, it accurately documents the attempt to make a complex reality tangible: What happens when chronic physical pain and extreme sleep deprivation collide with a psychiatric system that prefers to manage people rather than listen to them?
The exposé highlights not only my own path—from the accident in 2013 and the loss of my scientific career to my registration with the assisted suicide organization Exit in 2019. Above all, it reveals the dense web of grueling familial and institutional dynamics. It describes the conflicts with a father who, as a respected doctor, can barely admit his own medical misjudgments, and a mother torn between upholding the family’s reputation and worrying about her son.
Why am I sharing this here?
As I have written elsewhere: my story is just one example. What interests me are the deeper questions this exposé raises. How quickly are people pushed to the margins of society? How recklessly is the right to self-determination curtailed in our society the moment someone no longer fits the standard mold?
This text is not a cry for pity. It is a well-founded critique of the social and systemic barriers that chronically ill people face in the Swiss healthcare system. It is an invitation to seriously question the lack of a “culture of admitting mistakes” within psychiatry and family structures.