Male friend ended his own life, how do I deal with this grief?

[Anonymous]

This is more of a rant, me venting, than an actual question.

Right now, I'm grieving heavily. I had a friend who took his own life this afternoon and I think I'm going to have trouble sleeping tonight. I have no words to describe how miserable and guilty I feel right now.

This morning he posted on Facebook about how miserable and lonely he is, how he's never had a girlfriend his entire life and how he's unworthy of any kind of love because he thought he was too short and unattractive. I should have done something for him or said something to someone who could have helped him. I wish there was something I could have said to take his pain away, now I can't even say goodbye.

For some reason I feel that what happened is my fault. I knew he had a thing for me and he liked me in that way, but he wasn't my type and I made that clear when he and I started communicating. I cared about him and valued him as a friend, and now it looks like I'll have to attend another funeral soon, I'll have to see his grieving family and him in a casket, I don't know how I'll be able to handle that.

If you know somebody who is struggling with loneliness or depression, please reach out to them and let them know how much they mean to you, how valuable their lives are, because worst case scenario it will be too late and you won't even be able to say goodbye.

There are so many lonely, depressed men out there these days who are heading down a very dark path and we have the stones to act like they deserve it, or they brought it onto themselves. Excuse me, but he was somebody's son, brother, father. We need to save our men.

Updates

8 mo

For clarification, my late friend didn't have any children. The last bit was referring to the lonely isolated men who are out there.

Updates

8 mo

You guys have absolutely NO SOUL whatsoever. No wonder society is so fucked right now!

[Finchie40]

First don’t blame yourself for his choice to end his life , by you blaming yourself is just going to make it harder for you to move forward in your life. I had a best friend that was like a brother
To me take his own life as well and I talked to him the day before he did it , i felt lost as to why he did it and I felt like I could of stopped him from doing it , but honestly I didn’t hear any depression or sadness when I was talking to him on the phone , we were talking like we always do , joking about stuff and laughing , so in no way shape or form did I hear a cry for help at all. Sadly most of us don’t hear it , when someone is that depressed and sad it’s hard to know what is really going on in someone’s head , so I know you wish you could of did something to prevent it from happening but the trust is there was nothing you could do. Depression is a horrible thing that Some people can’t get the help they need , it’s almost like they feel it’s normal to be that way so taking their life isn’t a big deal to them cuz their brain is gone , I am sorry to hear about your loss and pray he is in a better place and May he RIP

[TheSpaceGnome]

There honestly isn't anything you can do at this point to deal with grief specifically, other than distracting yourself and acomplishing things.

The only thing you can do if you want to help prevent this kind of situation in the future, is to offer to help a new person find what they are looking for in life, and even then you might not be able to help them.

But those who tell you you're at fault for rejecting him, are full of shit. Never give up your own happiness for the sake of another's, If you did not like him that way, then rejecting him was the correct choice.

People need to have hope and patience to continue living when they are unhappy, they need a plan to get what they want in life. Without that life becomes very bleak, and if they experience that long enough, it becomes too emotionally draining and they snap and do rash things like suicide. But friends aren't genies, so the miserable person's desires have to be realistic to prevent that sort of outcome.

[Anonymous]

Men being big babies in the comments, as usual. You aren’t responsible for his personal issues. He is responsible for is own mental health. You’re not at fault at all.

[Opinion Owner]

Males are usually the ones that spew out shit like “DePrEsSiOn isn't rEaL” then whine about their suicide rates. Womp womp.

[Opinion Owner]

Im sorry but he was weak.

[TonyMetal___86]

No wonder if someday you died, you will be nothing more than a dead rat on the streets for me, since females like you worth sh*t

[abc3643]

1. You did nothing wrong.
2. You should not have done anything different. Why? Because, if he was into you "in that way, but he wasn't my type", there was no point in elevating his hopes. That does nothing except create disappointment later. Had he killed himself THEN (after you set him straight), you'd be feeling more guilt about it. You did the right thing.
3. I hate to say this - I really do, because it is cold and comes across as unfeeling - but this is "evolution in action". His taking his own life over something like this means that he was not mature enough to deal with reality or he was mentally weak if not defective. This is especially so if he was about your age; I might expect this from a teen or maybe a younger 20-something, but not someone who is 30ish or older. By that age, you should have been around the block a few times and realize that life isn't fucking Hollywood and that the good guy doesn't always win in the end. You win some, you lose some. But, a major hallmark of maturity is to not evaluate your self-worth by other individuals. A friend of mine said this in the summer of 1986: "If it doesn't feed me, fuck me, or get me high, I don't care about it." I was 23 and he was 20. I felt that was sad, but, now that I am old, he has a point. No one's opinions about you are important except that of your significant other and kids because they are your responsibility, or employers because they keep you alive so you can care for your family. That's it. Everybody else is irrelevant.

[exitseven]

Really sad ant it is natural to wonder if you could have done more. You were his friend and that was all you could give to him. Allow yourself to grieve and remember the special times you spent with him. Be kind to yourself and let yourself off the hook a little bit. Often when people take their own lives there are no signs and it is a complete shock to those around them.

[TonyMetal___86]

You're funny, you're confessing that you haven't done sh*t to save him and now you're mourning him, he had something for you and you have rejected him without even caring for his feelings, why does he suddenly means a lot for you?

I'm amazed by women who mentions all these things that you have mentioned, yet they say that they didn't love the person whom they had all these feelings for...

[TonyMetal___86]

@asker who doesn't have a soul, us or you? It's clear that you have caused him some damage, when you care about a person you repair the damage and not make it worst and when it's over you start to cry if you have done this and that...

I won't blame you for his death because no sane human being would committ suicide unless he/she was mentally ill and that's why we try to help such people because we need to fill them with everything positive in this life and when you say that you care about someone, it means you must care about them when they are alive and not dead...

[BoopBoopBeep]

I'm sorry for your loss. A good friend did that... shite i guess about a decade and some change ago. You never get over it, you just get along with it. Good luck on your journey.

[inhua]

[ We need to save our men ]

this message has been repeated for years and is still being ignored

[Fireguy17]

That is very normal to go through that.
It's part of the grieving process.
Suicides make it even harder to deal with.

[Anonymous]

Well rest easy. Because that metaphorical plane was crashing sooner or later. Someone's happiness is that person's responsibility and NO ONE else's.

[Anonymous]

At what point do we as a society stop acting surprised about this and actually take the problem seriously and try to do something about it?

[Opinion Owner]

If it were females commiting suicide ate 5 x the rate of males, you better beieve something would have been done a long time ago.

[Opinion Owner]

Why is that?

[Opinion Owner]

@TheSpaceGnome Suicide is a symptom of an underlying problem. We need to treat the illness itself, not the symptoms. That needs to begin with society acknowledging the problem (which it hasn't) and showing it cares about and values men and boys (which it generally doesn't). And then it needs to take action. Look up Andrew Yang's op ed piece titles 'The boys are not all right' for some good ideas there.

[KrakenAttackin]

Half of your post is about how inconvenient his suicide is to you.

[KrakenAttackin]

Besides, he's just a man, we kill ourselves by the bushel.

[Danny_dan92]

Sorry for your loss

[msc545]

Time.