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i view suicide as a personal decision. sometimes i think it is selfish and cowardly, but not always. someone committing suicide rather than going through a fatal disease--i understand and am sympathetic. someone who chooses to do it because they have a pile of debt and no job or they don't want to go to jail for a crime they committed, that's cowardly imo. my emotional response depends on why they do it.
losing someone you care about is terrible, but that is a part of life. being angry at someone for dying (whatever the cause) serves no purpose in my life. i may be angry that it happened, but mostly, i think i'd be saddened that they couldn't talk to me about what they were going through--or that i couldn't help them.
but like others, i always feel sorry for someone who is suffering so much that they feel ending their life is the only way to end their pain. often suicide attempts are a cry for help but not always. a friend of mine once treated a patient that attempted suicide by putting a gun in his mouth. he blew off the top of his head, but he lived. after he was discharged from the hospital, he went home and took a claw hammer to his newly bandaged skull and hit himself repeatedly--he didn't survive that one. for whatever reasons, this man wanted to die. his initial attempt is one many people would consider relatively pain free (assuming it works) but the second? that one had to have hurt like hell. imo, that isn't a cry for help, that is a very strong desire to die.
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