Coward or Brave Act ?

Do you think people who commit suicide are cowards? We've heard it said often enough that people who take their own lives is a coward's way out of things,' but we never hear, 'it takes courage to do something like that.' I think the immediate reaction is, 'it's a coward's act
is it really?

What are your thoughts on this topic?

Re: Coward or Brave Act ?

An overall sense of uselessness makes for a case of temporary "insanity". To call it cowardice is from the people who wished they could have helped. I don't think it takes courage to do the "act" in as much as the extreme feeling of deep depression takes hold enabling them. They were not cowards; but in need of love and perhaps attention in the right form.I've known a few that succeeded and a few that didn't. Latter part being scarred for life; and sometimes laughed at for "can't even kill themselves right". I came close after my mom passed but I realized how much she still love me.

Re: Coward or Brave Act ?

Not a coward at all,but someone who is desperately unhappy and sees no other way out of their situation.

Re: Coward or Brave Act ?

I think it must take an enormous amount of courage. There's nothing cowardly about not wishing to suffer a slow painful death - assuming that's the reason some people do it. I can't say what's going on in the heads of people who kill themselves for no apparent reason though, and teenagers who end their lives because some anonymous idiot on Facebook writes stuff about them is inexplicable to me.

Re: Coward or Brave Act ?

When you are at the lowest of low in your life it can be the release from the constant sreaming inside your head where no rational thought can enter because of all the noise. Big difference between those who do it for attention and those who really mean it . those who do mean it normally suceed as quietly as possible . those who do it for attention some times make mistakes and die . It's like people who constantly talk about how much they have wrong with them and how much pain they are in ...people only do that for attention and sit and wallow in it . while the one's really in pain normally suffer in silence and are trying to be positve by helping them selves and keeping fits as possible while finding ways to release the pain through exercise.
I believe most suffering mental and pysical can be helped by exercise as it releases a chemical into the brain which gives you more positive thoughts. Which inturn makes you help your self. The people who sit wallowing with all the bottle of pills around them saying they cant exercise because it hurts to much are just attention seeking . If done with a trained person everyone can make them selves stronger a little each day .
Its nothing to do with bravery or cowardice.... its a mental state

Re: Coward or Brave Act ?

It's nothing to do with courage or cowardice, these people are ill and desperate for peace..

Re: Coward or Brave Act ?

There are as many different reasons for suicide as there are suicides. No two are the same, so to describe them as cowardice or courage is pretty meaningless. I knew one guy whose suicide was perhaps "courageous" - he was facing a future of terrible pain and discomfort through terminal illness and didn't want to put his family through the pain of seeing his gradual and tragic decline.
Another suicide I knew was much more difficult to either understand or categorise. An 18yr old young man who worked for me as a volunteer had everything going for him. Good looking, talented (he had 4 A levels at grade 1), was an amazing musician who had been offered several recording contracts, loving parents, had a place at Oxford, popular with everyone who met him. One evening, he finished a piece of music he had been working on, went down to a local park and hanged himself from a tree. He hadn't spoken to anyone, had no problems that anyone knew about, hadn't broken up with his girlfriend. 20 years on everyone who knew him are still as puzzled now as they were then. The closest I have come to, maybe, understanding this young man's suicide was after watching the film "Rumble Fish" where the Motorcycle Boy's father muses about his elder son's situation,

Re: Coward or Brave Act ?

How sad to feel you have no one to turn to for help, no one you think may understand whatever your problem is,whether it's a perceived one or real, to feel there is nothing to look forward to, only whatever you fear the most.

I speak regularly to a man who has depression and his body is just falling apart, I can't stop it but for a time I can make him forget, and laugh. I have the time for him and it's worth all the medication in the world. I'm just at the end of the phone, yes he's been on antidepressants but he doesn't think they help,just knock him out. I only found out recently he'd been contemplating suicide when I turned up.

Re: Coward or Brave Act ?

Agree with both posts. It is nothing to do with cowardice or courage. People who suggest otherwise do not understand what severe depression is.

Re: Coward or Brave Act ?

I also believe there is no cowardice or bravery regarding suicide. Having lost one of my family this way I knew he felt he couldn't cope with life as it was. So he killed himself. The only people who suffer are the ones left behind as its true that you think could I have done something, said something to make this situation change. You then have to come around to thinking that it was to be and there is nothing you could have done. I do feel sorry for these youngsters nowadays who kill themselves just because their first love rejected them or someone on FB tells them to do it. I cant fathom that at all. I would have been dead decades ago if I had taken notice of what people said or my love had gone. I thought I am better than that and made myself stronger with helping others. You don't think of yourself then.