Originally Posted by Lara

I don't think attempting to kill oneself has anything to do with either cowardice or bravery, but that's just how I think. I do find it sad that people would equate despair with cowardice. I think that is a totally unfair and unreasonable and illogical statement. It doesn't make sense to me.

I know what it's like to be judged but I feel that sometimes when people judge other people that way then they're just talking through their hat with hollow words 'cause they find it easier to judge than to try to understand in a compassionate way, or even just talk about what's going on at all.

It's the same as people who tell others to just "get on with it and forget the past". We are our past. How can people forget the past? That's something I could never understand with my so-called relatives regarding a lot of things that happened in my younger years as a child and teenager. When my relatives used to say things like that to me it was like negating my very existence and the experiences that had made me who I am. I lost my parents very young in life and went to live with relatives who acted all my life as if they had never existed. Not a word. Not one word. I ended up feeling as if I'd been dropped off here from an outer solar system instead of born to beautiful people. Instead of being able to openly deal with grief in a caring environment, it became almost "easy" to just shut it all away.

So, to therealme, I just think that by suggesting that you're a coward for attempting to end your own existence just doesn't make sense to me. It's those sort of comments and treatments that makes people totally shut off from others ... well, it would be for me.

therealme, I'm not sure we've met before. I see you've only made a couple of posts on these forums, but I really hope that you're feeling stronger by now and I also hope that you have someone in your "real" life (apart from here I mean, and we are real too) who cares about therealyou and whatever you do, please don't shut it all away, 'cause sometimes when we shut it all away for far too long, it all just wants to get out in too much of a hurry and then we need to deal with that on a more intense level than getting through from day to day. Sometimes that's what it takes though, just getting through day to day but I'm really hoping you have some good support there to fall back on if you need it.

Please let us know how you're doing.
I don't know you, but I do know I care how you're doing.