If an 80 year old widow drinks poison, they will likely not even perform an autopsy, and just say she died of old age. Some suicides are written as accidents (she accidentally fell off a cliff) or sudden heart attacks or accidental poisonings etc.
Survival instinct and Hope. Mind changes often.
And the fact that I can't just walk to a drug store, buy Nembutal and then go visit my friends/relatives and say "Hey I wanna die! Can you stay with me while I drink this N and die?". Suicide would be much easier if you could perform it in public in front of people's eyes. It would also be easier if suicide was okay in society, if you could be open about your suicide feelings, and didn't have to hide it.
I've met so many people who want ctb, but either their parents/spouses are always home and they don't want to get caught or
Mental jails. "I can't ctb at home, what if my spouse finds me and sends me to thought jail?"
Fear of failed attempts.
Lack of money. Some people don't even have money to buy a 5 dollar rope.
Lack of access to ctb methods, I mean if the nearest rope store is 50 miles away and you don't have a car, internet, phone, public transportation, etc. it's hard to buy a rope. Or if there's no place to do a full hanging or jump from a tower/bridge.
Not all people can access suicide wikis etc. I'm not a native English speaker, and if I hadn't learnt English at school and home, I would have no idea how to ctb because there would be no resources available in my native language.
Faith/spiritual/religious beliefs. Some feel that it's wrong to ctb or that it's wrong to ctb before age 50 etc. And of course gods will come and open the portal so I don't have to die and I can just freely enter the better worlds.
Some people have trouble following guides. When I was younger, I couldn't follow the simplest of guides. Teachers got really angry with me. I was the type to turn left and push, when the teachers told us to turn right and pull.
Tiredness. Some people don't even have the energy, power, ability to raise from their beds. Even ctbing requires too much energy for them.
Being in wheelchair. You can't drive a car, you can't walk. Pretty hard to ctb.
Some areas have a really high population density. It's often much easier to ctb if you live in a town of 500 people than if you live in a place where 20 000 000 people live in mud cups and there are 15 people per family, from grandparents to grandchildren living together.
Fear of death.
They don't want to ctb. It's like many people want to be writers, but few will even try writing in the end. Some people may say they want to die, but would never attempt ctb. They'll wait to die by other means.
"I wanna die, but what of my parents/spouses/friends/siblings/relatives/dogs/cats/rebbits/pets/etc.?"
Some people might work from dawn to dusk and be too tired to attempt a suicide after a 12 work day.
Lots of people will also think "I'm only 25, I want to die, but I will wait till I'm 35 to see if my life will get better, I don't wanna die young."
Then at last, some people die of illnesses before they ctb. A person might think of ctbing this weekend, but die in a car accident or of heart attack tomorrow.
I think that covers most of them.
