Shanti DeCort, a twenty-three-year-old woman and a survivor of the March 22nd, 2016, Brussels Airport terrorist attack, chose to opt out of her life and was euthanized this past May.
Shanti, seventeen years old at the time of the attack, was walking through the departure area of the airport headed to Italy accompanied by classmates when two explosions rocked the airport. A coordinated suicide bombing shook the airport and the Maalbeek Brussels metro station in Brussels. Three of four bombs detonated, killing 32 and injuring more than 300. Shanti escaped the attack physically unharmed, but she would never be the same.
Panic attacks and depression became the norm rather than the exception. The sights and sounds of the onslaught brought on PTSD and deep, dark bouts of depression. Her school psychologist referred her to a psychiatric rehabilitation facility in her hometown of Antwerp.
Shanti regularly attended sessions at the hospital, but it didn’t improve her condition.
She began to share candid thoughts about her mental struggles on social media. In one post, she told her followers, “I get a few medications for breakfast. And up to 11 antidepressants a day. I couldn’t live without it. With all the medications I take, I feel like a ghost that can’t feel anything anymore. Maybe there were other solutions than medications.”
The panic attacks and bouts of depression continued. Her condition pushed her into two suicide attempts, one in 2018 and the other in 2020. In early 2022 Shanti decided that her life wasn’t worth living any longer and chose to be euthanized, a legal procedure in Belgium. Her condition and behavior were enough to convince two psychiatrists to approve the lethal process, and she took her final breath on May 7th.
Shanti’s mom Marielle recently shared her thoughts with a Belgian media outlet. “That day really cracked her, she never felt safe after that.
“She didn’t want to go anywhere where other people were, out of fear. She also had frequent panic attacks and she never got rid of it.”
