just because you haven’t killed me vertically
doesn’t mean you haven’t killed my horizontally
by treating me like i’m already dead
and then crying foul when i start believing it

There are two axes of death.  The vertical is physiological death, from perfectly healthy to the heart stops beating.  The horizontal is the death of a person that’s more psychological, social, and even spiritual.  The most obvious example is deterioration due to a traumatic brain injury or Alzheimer’s.  But parts of you destroyed by mental illness also qualify as horizontal death.  And because so much of a person is made up of their social interactions/bonds, ostracism and scorn also aid in ones horizontal death.

There are laws protecting people from vertical death (even threats of vertical death) but no protection from horizontal death.