29-Year-Old Man Requests Euthanasia Denied Under Spanish Law

The 29-year-old 'nini' requesting euthanasia who does not meet legal requirements

At 29, without a job, a partner, and without ever having kissed anyone, this is the starting point of a story that has stretched over two years, raising an unanswerable question: what do we do with a young man who spent his adolescence and youth locked inside his home? He takes medication for depression, anxiety, and social phobia. He identifies as an nini (a NEET). He says he feels shame, not envy, for his friends who work and have partners, having distanced himself because he does not fit in. He requests euthanasia because suicide, he admits, frightens him.

What profile lies behind a 29-year-old 'nini' who has never kissed anyone?

A 29-year-old man who has never worked, never had a partner, and never given his first kiss. He tells it himself, plainly, adding details that complete the picture: he goes running to lift his spirits but returns unchanged, spends most of the day locked up, and has stopped seeing his friends. Social phobia and depression are not hearsay self-diagnoses: he is under pharmacological treatment and attends regular appointments.

The case is not exceptional. In the same conversation, another nearly identical profile emerges: someone who began seeing a psychiatrist at 23, eventually visiting a private specialist three times a month, who now has no friends, no partner, no pets, and nothing tying him down. His answer to why he remains alive is as simple as it is uncomfortable: the antiestéticar of death.

Why can he not qualify for euthanasia?

Because he does not fit the criteria. The request is reserved for those suffering from a serious and incurable illness or a severe and chronic disability, and the response is blunt: to be granted it, one must be ill in that sense, which, he is told, is not his case. He argues the reverse, claiming that if another person can change gender with public support, he should be able to end his life with the same backing. The argument does not hold legally, and the replies are given without sugarcoating.

There is also a specific reference to an association for the right to die with dignity, along with a repeated warning: the process is long, can take years, and often ends in a no.

What is failing in psychiatric care?

The interested party himself provides the data: he sees his doctor every six months. This is insufficient for someone who says he thinks about dying 365 days a year. Another account admits that even if he went more often, he does not believe it would have helped much.

A health warning with dubious backing slips in here: it is claimed that certain psychotropic drugs are petroleum derivatives, worsen anxiety, leave irreversible consequences on the nervous system, and cause a rebound effect shortly after discontinuation. None of this is accompanied by any source. Psychiatric medication is adjusted or withdrawn only under professional supervision, not based on a message.

What solutions are proposed?

Most involve taking action. Working, even if just deep-cleaning the house, seeking employment, exercising outdoors, learning a trade, traveling. Also, and this is repeated, helping others: grocery shopping for elderly neighbors, volunteering in workshops with people with disabilities, accompanying patients. Those who do not feel capable of helping themselves are told they might still be able to help someone worse off.

There is another, less obvious path: moving to a town in depopulated Spain. There, it is argued, housing and food are covered in exchange for work, there are animals, people, and, above all, a purpose. And a third, more abrupt option: buying cheap rural land and working eight hours a day; if the heart holds, the mind heals, and if not, the problem ends.

The most useful testimony comes from someone who rebuilt his life just before turning 40 and admits that, even today, he sometimes does not recognize himself in the mirror.

What happens when the conversation turns to methods?

It breaks down. Pathways are discarded for being too gruesome, and a point worth emphasizing is repeated: they almost never work. Someone states that more than 90% of attempts fail to achieve their goal. In the very case opening this story, there was an episode of massive medication ingestion ending in acute distress and a call for emergency help. Survival, even when sought otherwise, prevails.

A closing that stalls

After more than two years, the balance is this: a health system that schedules appointments every six months, a law that does not cover his request, an environment that demands strength when he says he has none, and a list of solutions —work, exercise, town life, helping others— that require exactly the impulse he lacks. No one has explained what to do with someone who finds no reason to stay nor the courage to leave. And there, the analysis stops.