Now with all of the hype that has come from "13 Reasons Why", there is also a good bit of backlash. One of those backlashes is that anyone with suicidal thoughts or who has committed suicide; are cowards. I've heard this word "coward" get tossed around time and time again when someone takes their life and quite frankly it pisses me off.
It's time we stop calling a mental disconnection to the world a personality flaw. Being known as a coward in this society, is generally a bad thing. So when you call suicide a cowardly act, you're calling it a bad thing. And it is, but not for the reasons you are implying.
Suicide is awful, I understand that. It is the ending of a life. A living, breathing, thinking, feeling person. It takes away our loved ones from us. Not in anyway am I trying to lessen the pain of those who have lost someone to suicide. Death, it is very dark and painful to hear, it is very emotional, no matter the cause. But we have to stop calling suicidal people cowards. You have to understand that someone thinking of ending their lives are going through a mental struggle that we should try to understand.
To not have a suicidal mindset, to be healthy and happy, is something a lot of us take for granted. Suicide isn't something that simply happens. Suicide is a result of someone being so lost to the point that taking their life is the only option. It is not something that happens in one day, it happens over a period of time. It's something that happens when someone loses a long, endless, internal battle.
We live in this society of bullies. You get bullied, raped, abused and put into this traumatic situation and you want to give up. No one understands the pain that you have been through, what you have faced, and you are the coward? Life is a beautiful thing, but when you just don't care, you're so lost, and broken, you don't see it as beautiful anymore. You see this blank empty nothingness inside and they know that no matter how hard they try to get help and it doesn't work; they are the cowards.
I understand that suicide is not the answer but calling them a coward is? Isn't that another form of bullying? What happens when kids going through this situation see that post. See that post that says suicidal people are weak; they are cowards. What do you think they feel after that? It's just going to push them over the edge even more.
If you don't know, if you don't understand what someone has been through, what they have suffered; that doesn't give you any right to call them a coward for it. They feel like they don't belong, that all they are is this mistake to the world.
To the ones calling suicidal people cowards or weak, think twice. Remember that you are lucky to not have to understand what it is like, to want to give up. Lucky to not be fighting-and maybe losing- a tough battle. Lucky to be here and be alive.
