True, but since I can not study and get on their mindframe I can not in honesty know if is not "cowardice" and instead is "madness". I am in for the whole human experience and if that include suffering a painful illness well, god damned that is what being human is. Diagnosed with depression over 25 years ago. Never treated properly, I am still here not complaining of my bad life experience. Everybody I ever met show signs of depression but I am not licensed to prescribe you. Today I got a VA appt... another opportunity to decline wonder pills, happy pills, stay awake pills, sleeping pills, vaccinations, etc. When I am "depress" I go dancing.

Suicide is cowardly not brave but one might think of it as the very last move in a person who has been depressed for years or overwhelmed by the symptoms with suicide the born out all depression brings... it’s an isolated, lone , helpless guilt filled state where one might seem on the edge of insanity

I think a better question would be 'Is it selfish of people to blame a person who commits suicide for their loss of that person?' The person who suicides is simply no longer alive but the sense of pain and loss that some people feel as a result of that person no longer being there can be great but it is their choice too on how to deal with that.
I've lost people in this life and it has often been a painful experience, especially when I was younger and didn't know how to deal with it. Blaming the person who opts to end their life by suicide is essentially blaming the victim, at least in my opinion.

More deaths from suicide than from war, murder and terrorist combined in the world.

Most cases of suicide are because they can't find anyone that love them. Old and enfants die when they are not loved.

I believe in enthanasia when pain or horrible life conditions are too great wroth living for.
Life is challenging, you must love yourself first and find love and on top your healthy.
Then you can be considered a coward.

I used to think cowards not anymore in most cases the person is not mentally capable of decideing what's right from wrong so sad.

Just what is cowardly about taking ones own life? I have heard this before & do not understand the logic. One cannot walk in anothers shoes in this regard. How is it cowardly to choose death over unrelenting pain?

It might be selfish... might be selfish with good reasoning (terminally ill). It might be a few other things but I wouldn't think it to be cowardly.

Suicide is escaping pain.

Is someone who takes pain killers to numb the pain of a toothache a coward?

It is cowardly however, to judge those who've chosen suicide.

Suicide is just an action. You need to understand the motives of the individual before you can make any characterization. It's not a true or false proposition.

No its sign of complete depression! The person feels life sucks to much to continue! They don't see it improving and most likely get worse.

"Cowardly?"

Seems to me that an individual should have the ultimate say on whether their life should continue or not. That is not to say that people with depression should not get help and be able to get past the dark places in their lives but everyone should have autonomy. In the case of incurable illness, ending your life before a horrible end makes a lot of sense to me.

False!

Sometimes true; sometimes false.

Desperate.

I used to believe that suicide was a cowardly cop-out, and sometimes, maybe it is, but... Unless someone is suffering from mental illness and doesn't realize what they are actually doing, I now believe it takes some extraordinary circumstances/difficulties/suffering for a person to arrive at a place where they believe ending their life is the answer. I feel for that person. I feel for their pain and suffering and the agony they must be experiencing that led them to that horrible place. =[

False. I could never, ever, ever judge someone for taking their own life. You never know what is going on in someone's head, so to have the audacity to judge someone is just wrong. How can people know what is right for someone else? We can't.

Suicide is not about courage or cowardice, it's about depression and feeling like you can never find a way to be happy and live with yourself. Some people who have loved ones who have committed suicide blame them and are upset with them and call it cowardice, unfortunately that is not the case and that approach to their loved one's depression can sometimes exacerbate the problem.

The only time that I can see taking ones own life as an acceptable option is when age or illness has left them with a poor quality of life and the total and complete inability to contribute to their community anymore.

False.
Simply having life doesn't mean one has to use it.
Suicide - by any one, at any time, for any reason.

There's lots of reasons for why someone commits suicide. Some reasons and methods are more susceptible to being judged than are others. I knew a guy that had terminal cancer, tired of fighting it, etc. He cared enough about his wife that he waited until she was gone and he knew someone else would be the person who found him. He was not depressed, he was going to die soon, anyway, but still took pains to make sure his wife suffered as little as possible from his decision. I judge that to be an honorable act. It's not for anyone to judge whether or not he should have done it.

I have mixed feelings on this, but I'd have to say the answer is situational. When I look at these people doing mass shootings, who then kill themselves (either by their hand, or suicide by cop) my first instinct is that yes, they are cowards, not only inflicting their fear and self hatred on others in the worst kind of way, but cowards who cannot face the fallout of their own actions.

Then, there is the other side of that coin. A month after my father died (I was 19), another man I knew - who had been like a father to me - took his life. His act was not out of fear, or cowardice. His was in pain, agony and desperation, when he could literally see no other way to stop the pain he felt both physically and emotionally. In his case, he got all his affairs in order, made sure his family was taken care of; he even made sure that the place he did the deed would be easily cleaned up, so as to not cause anyone to have to remodel or repaint the apartment he was living in. He even called the police and told them where they could find him, so no one would have to stumble upon the scene by accident.

I think back on what that man did, to keep others safe from his pain. How every day, with each step he took that brought him closer to the moment he took his own life... how brave he was to keep going. He was simply in too much pain to understand that no matter what steps he took to protect the rest of us, that we would all be hurt terribly by his absence.

Twenty-six years later, and I still find this hard to write. I still come close to breaking down into a sobbing puddle, wishing I could have found a way to help. But, I know that the best I could have done would have been to simply delay it.

But I will never see that man as a coward; he was one of the finest people I've ever known in my life. He just got lost in a dark tangle of despair, and couldn't see that there were other doors.

There are too many reasons to make it that black and white. I have had 5 friends take their own life. There was only one whom l had no idea why.

I wouldn't see it as cowardly. For some people it is the only option that they wish to consider. UNless you live in someone else's head you don't know the narrative that they are living by. Support and encouragement for desperate people is a worthwhile action, but a choice made is empowering, even if it leads to their death

"cowardly" is using stream of consciousness, so false. Big false, there.