Adam Maier-Clayton says he’s always been confident, clear-minded and brimming with ambition.

But he still wants to kill himself.

At 26, the pain from his slew of diagnosed mental illnesses has become unbearable; he compares it to acid that sizzles across his mind and burns his chest, arms, eyes and back. He wants to die, but he believes he has the right to do so legally and by his own free will. So he’s speaking out as much as possible — even though he says such cognitive effort “smashes” him with psychosomatic pain — in a bid to force the Liberal government in Ottawa to change its medically assisted dying law to make it more inclusive.

“It would be far more preferable than restraining my hands and jumping off a bridge or a building,” he said in an interview Tuesday from his home in Windsor, where he lives with his father.

“There’s a fundamental difference between a life and an existence,” he said. “I will commit suicide because I will not live like this.”

Dozens of people have stepped forward in recent weeks to join a constitutional challenge against the federal assisted dying bill, which was passed into law in June. The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) is spearheading the challenge aimed at striking down the law’s eligibility criteria, which critics contend is overly restrictive.

The BCCLA’s director of litigation, Grace Pastine, said the organization has been “overwhelmed” by contributions to its crowd-funding campaign for a legal battle that met its $75,000 target in just 10 days. The case features a single plaintiff so far — Julia Lamb, a wheelchair-bound 25-year-old who suffers from spinal muscular atrophy, a degenerative disease that she fears will eventually consign her to years of intolerable suffering.

“It is a testament to how important and deeply personal this issue is to so many Canadians” Pastine told The Canadian Press.

The BCCLA launched the legal challenge that led to last year’s Supreme Court ruling that struck down the Criminal Code ban on medically assisted dying, a landmark decision that came after a four-year legal battle that saw the federal government under former prime minister Stephen Harper spend at least $3.3 million defending the challenge, according to a document released under the Access to Information Act.

More recently, Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government has signalled its intention to vigorously defend its new law, which it maintains is a delicate balance between personal autonomy and protecting the vulnerable.

“The last government spent millions in taxpayers’ money to defend, unsuccessfully, a law that caused immeasurable suffering and, in the process, ran roughshod over Canadians’ charter rights,” said Shanaaz Gokool, CEO of Dying with Dignity Canada, in an interview with The Canadian Press.

“We question why the current government, with its stated commitment to upholding the charter, would want to adopt the same misguided approach.”

Maier-Clayton said he is considering whether to join the BCCLA’s challenge of the new law, and that he is also discussing another legal challenge with a law firm in another province. In an interview with the Star on Tuesday, he said he believes people with debilitating suffering from mental illness or non-terminal diseases should have the legal right to choose to die.

The new law allows assisted dying only for those in an advanced state of irreversible decline from an incurable condition and for whom natural death is “reasonably foreseeable.” It does not apply to those who are not near death or to those suffering strictly from psychiatric illnesses.

While he has decided that he will take his own life, Maier-Clayton said he feels a responsibility to speak out and join “the Canadian battle for the right to die.” After that, he said he’ll either get a doctor to help him or take care of dying on his own accord.

“I’m not afraid of death. I live very close to a waterfront. I could kill myself if I wanted to, but it’s not just about me it’s about all these other people, too,” he said.

In the Supreme Court decision last year, known as the Carter decision, the top court directed the federal government to come up with a law recognizing that consenting adults with grievous and irremediable conditions who are suffering in a way that is intolerable to them have a right to seek medical help to end their lives.

Last May, the Alberta Court of Appeal rejected the Trudeau government’s bid to prevent a 58-year-old woman suffering strictly from a psychiatric illness that caused her excruciating pain from obtaining a medically assisted death. The appeal court ruled that the Carter decision did not preclude individuals with mental illnesses or those who were not near death.

The following month, the government proceeded with its new law anyway.

Asked how his family feels about his plan to end his life, Maier-Clayton said his father has accepted his desires and understands that his enjoyment of life has been derailed by his array of mental illnesses, which he said include obsessive compulsive, generalized anxiety and major depressive disorders. He is making a series of videos he wants posted online after he’s gone.

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But until then he wants to push to make sure other people in his shoes don’t have to concoct a secret “Mission Impossible plan” to take their own lives.

“I’ll be proud that I stepped up to a system and a society that frankly stigmatizes suicide to a point that it’s a bad thing every single time no matter what. Even if you have cancer,” he said. “If I kill myself, I’ll be proud.”