[Serious] Redditors whose SO committed suicide, how did you feel and how did you cope?

Using a throwaway for this.

My SO committed suicide when we were in college. He had been diagnosed with schizophrenia in our late teens and had been fighting a losing battle ever since.

At first, I felt numb. I got a call from his sister to tell me the news--I remember her crying and me calmly comforting her, because I just could not grasp what she was saying. I heard the words, I knew what they meant, but it was like my brain couldn't make it any further than that. I didn't cry or really talk to anyone for the first 2-3 days, and I couldn't sleep. Mostly I just sat around and stared at things blankly.

After my feelings finally kicked back in, I felt a lot of what other posters have described: overwhelming sorrow, betrayal, frustration, confusion. The one thing I didn't expect to feel was relief. That one--and the guilt that came with it--fucked me up for a long time.

For the last couple of years of our relationship, I was really more of a caretaker than a girlfriend. By the end, the time we spent together primarily consisted of (1) me driving hours to be there for hospital visiting hours wherever he happened to be staying that time around and (2) bizarre, sometimes terrifying phone calls at odd hours when he got out of the hospital and things inevitably started to go south again. My grades were dropping, my friendships were suffering, I was suffering. I guess some very small part of me registered that his death, as terrible as it was, meant that I had permission to move on with my life. I could use free weekends to visit family instead of visiting hospitals. I didn't have to jump every time my phone rang. I didn't have to constantly worry about where he was, what he was doing, whether he was okay.

It's been almost a decade, and I've kind of made my peace with myself--and with him--by now. I don't think you ever really fully "get over it," but you adapt and learn to cope over time. The memory gets fuzzier. You start feeling human again.

/r/AskReddit Thread