'This is not an existence I want... if you don't agree with my decision it doesn't make what I've done wrong'
26.03.2024 - 12:11
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
A woman who took her own life after a serious injury has explained her decision in a letter published posthumously.
Caroline March, 31, injured her spine while riding a horse at a cross-country event in April 2022. She fractured vertebrae and wrote on her Instagram page in the days afterwards that she had "no feeling to my legs".
In a later post, she wrote: "How is it one year since without a doubt the worst day of my life? I wish I could say it was getting easier but it's not."
Despite endless physio, recovery workouts and flying to the US for experimental treatment, her injury, which she suffered at Barefoot Retreats Burnham Market in Norfolk, had stopped her from doing "anything and everything" that she once loved to do.
Her death, on Saturday, was announced in a post to her Facebook page which shared a letter that she wrote, explaining her decision to end her life. She wrote that it was "not an existence I want".
In the letter, Ms March said: "I've never understood societies' obsession with longevity and the need to live for as long as possible.
"Alan Watts, a well-known philosopher, famously said 'I'd rather have a short life that is full of what I love doing, than a long life spent in a miserable way'.
"Assisted suicide is always something that I believed in and have always said, that if anything happened to me and I was forced into the predicament that I couldn't have the quality of life that I wanted, that would be the route I'd take. Not going to lie, never imagined it would come to fruition but here we are."
She said it was a "decision I've made which is the best route for me", adding: "Just because you don't agree with my decision doesn't make what I've done wrong."
She said she had felt "so much love from so