Whoa, Rowan. So much for feeling like I can have my own opinion, eh? Sorry to have offended you, but I don't think I (or anyone else expressing the same opinion, depending on what I'll post about now) deserved to to be called "****ed".

There's a bold line between suicide and mental illness. I do not think mental illness is cowardly, and I do not view those with mental illnesses lower than myself. I do think taking your own life is selfish, whether or not you have a mental illness - as Lacquer Head mentioned, not all suicide starts of from a mental illness. Sure, I have no idea what could possibly be running through someone's mind before they make that final, fatal decision, but I'm telling you now, it's not of anyone else's feelings but themselves.

I usually hate it when people turn to experience to prove a point, or explain using it as such, but it's inescapable here. I'm not an expert on suicide just because my step dad tried to top himself, and nor am I for the friends and relatives who succeeded in doing so. But I do think it's the cowards way out, and I do think it's selfish. When my step dad finally woke up after the longest twenty-four hours of my life, he apologised and even said it himself. If I remember, he said he could "kill himself for being so selfish" but at the time, I don't think he could grasp the irony of such a statement. To this day, he still calls himself a coward.

If he had died that night, he would have left me, my mum, my brother, my nan, his own son, his son's mother, his own mother, his brothers, his sisters and everyone else who was relying on him to teach the ways of life as he knows it. He was a hypocrite. While he was lying in that bed, I was furious with him as well as upset which are completely normal reactions. This was a man I looked up to as a father figure, a man I respected; how can I respect someone slumped in a hospital bed, using up resources just because they couldn't hack it? He had help all around him, and he knew he had help, but he didn't ask for it.

Before that and for a while after, we all had to live with him suffering from depression. When he took that overdose, we blamed ourselves for not being able to help. He made us think we'd caused it. Do I love him even more or even less now? No. I love him the same. But I can't forgive him for those few days.

There are other different forms of suicide, euthanasia as such that I don't think of as cowardly or selfish. Honestly, if I was dying from an incurable disease, I wouldn't want to use up precious medial attention or supplies. I'd be devastated that I hadn't done or seen everything I'd wanted to do or see in my life, and I'd be devastated to leave behind the people I love, but I will do everything in power to make sure I wasn't wanting to die because of them and that I love them with every ounce of my being.

Maybe I am a disgusting little bitch for holding these views, and you can hate me or it if you want. But this is my opinion.