Yes, you got it 100%. I agree, it is not idiomatic, but was intended to call back the "death before dishonor" trope that your sibling commenter mentioned. I intended "dishonor" to cover a number of cases short of my death where I might be unable to continue to care for my obligations for a long period of time. For example, imprisoned, deplatformed, critically injured in a coma, lost in a serious mental health crisis, etc. In some ways, handling that is a harder challenge than handling death, as there are fewer well-worn paths to follow.
(Native speaker) Wrong, but the intent was clearly that they were out of it for whatever reason. And since the true purpose of language is to communicate and it does that is it truly wrong?
It doesn't mean anything, because it is wrong. The correct idiom is "death before dishonor", which means that one would choose death instead of doing something disgraceful/shameful.