I have intimate experience of the concept of suicide from both sides.
I was a Samaritan for three years, and found out a lot about the mind-set of people who want to, or indeed do take their lives.
Twenty years ago I had a complete mental breakdown and i was hospitalised for three months, and off work for nearly a year.
I came as close as possible to taking my life, and I learned a few basic facts to which the rest of the population do not have access.
It is not a 'brave' or 'cowardly' act - it is an act of control. It takes back control of the pain for just a few seconds, and in the case of a violent death, it hits back at the pain with finality, an attractive proposition if your mind is in that state - where living for ten more seconds is simply intolerable.
Thouhts of family or friends, of the consequences simply don;t enter into it. At that stage, your mind is totally isolated and shut down - any thoughts of external help (Why didn;t he talk to me?) are long gone, it's just about the isolation and tne pain, there is nothing else.
I got past it, I am on medication for life. I do have seriously bad times that leave me unable to function, but i get past them, and I'm still here.
So if anyone close to you takes their life - know there was nothing you could do, it wasn;t selfish or stupid or attention-seeking, it was about release from the pain, killing the pain, and they are out of that now.
It's a dreadful situation that drives people to escape in this way, but it is real, and misunderstood, and desparate, and it could happen to anyone if the circumstances are there - you simply have to be desparate enough.
To answer your points -
I would have jumped under one of the seriously fast artics that drove past the hospital gates every day.
I am mentally strong, I hung on and fought my way through it, and