For as long as she can remember, 25-year-old Annaliese Holland has lived in a body that seemed determined to betray her. From childhood hospital beds to her early twenties spent tethered to IV lines and feeding pumps, her life has been shaped by relentless pain, chronic illness and the slow disintegration of her organs. Now, after years of fighting a disease that has stolen every part of her youth, Annaliese has chosen to end her life through voluntary assisted dying. As she explained in an interview with News.com.au, the decision came after a lifetime of worsening symptoms and unrelenting decline.Growing up in Adelaide, Annaliese endured years of unexplained agony. Doctors struggled to understand why she vomited constantly, why her stomach failed to empty, and why even the simplest bodily functions became impossible. It was only when she turned 18 and moved into adult care that she finally received a name for her suffering: autoimmune autonomic ganglionopathy (AAG), a rare disorder in which the immune system attacks the nerves controlling involuntary functions such as digestion, heart rate and blood pressure.
A life defined by pain, fractures and failing organs from birth
As AAG progressed, Annaliese’s digestive system essentially stopped working. Her bowel behaved as though blocked, despite nothing physically obstructing it. Feeding tubes were inserted, but she continued vomiting. Eventually she was placed on total parenteral nutrition, dependent on an IV line for all nutrients. This brought its own dangers. Any infection entering the line could spread to her bloodstream within hours. She survived sepsis 25 times, each episode a fight for her life.According to People magazine, the medications required to manage her symptoms came with devastating consequences. Annaliese developed severe osteoporosis in her early twenties, suffering four spinal fractures, a cracked sternum and dangerously high pressure on her heart and lungs. Her body became fragile and unpredictable, a daily battlefield.“There are beautiful moments,” she said, “but they are exhausting. I am in chronic, debilitating pain every single day.”
Watching life move without her
As her friends moved into adulthood, with engagements, weddings and new babies, Annaliese remained confined to hospital rooms and her bed at home. Birthdays passed unnoticed behind curtains and machines. She described the feeling as being stuck in place, watching everyone else race ahead.“No man wants to date someone dying,” she admitted quietly. “I understand.”By the age of 22, doctors told her what she had feared: her condition was terminal. Multi-organ failure had begun. Her body could no longer tolerate regular feeding. Sepsis lurked behind every medical procedure. The future held only pain.After years of fighting, Annaliese realised she wanted to reclaim the one thing her disease had not yet taken: her autonomy. She applied for voluntary assisted dying (VAD), a process that required extensive medical assessments and psychological evaluations before approval.
A choice made with clarity
When the approval finally came, after three weeks of scrutiny, Annaliese cried with relief. “It sounds strange to be happy about it,” she said, “but I finally felt a little bit of peace.”She emphasised that choosing VAD was not surrender. “It is not giving up. It is knowing you have fought for so long and so hard, and you cannot keep suffering like this.”Her decision devastated her family. Her mother, Amanda, still prays for a miracle, even as she understands the unbearable reality her daughter faces. Her father, Patrick, initially begged her to keep fighting until he watched doctors resuscitate her yet again.She remembers turning to him and pleading: “Dad, please let me go. I will not hate you. I just cannot do this anymore.”That moment changed everything. “I totally understand,” he finally told her. “You have had enough.”
Choosing dignity at the end of a long fight
For Annaliese, the decision is not about death, but about relief from pain, from fear and from the dread of waking each day in a failing body.“I feel lucky to have this choice,” she said. “It is one of the bravest things you can do, to say you have had enough. I have fought bloody hard.”In choosing her own ending, she is taking back the small piece of life her disease never controlled: her final say.
