Suicide. Grieving for somebody I didn’t know.

[PerfectionistProcrastinator]

Last week a man I am friends with on Facebook took his own life.

We had never met in person. There was some confusion as to who added who and why. (We had school friends in common). He messaged me one day when he was working and travelling in another country, full of compliments and trying to get me to go over. I told him I couldn’t but agreed to a date for one day in the future when he came back.

We texted back and forth for a few weeks before it tailed off. We remained connected on Facebook but didn’t interact at all. A few weeks later he met a lady who he went on to marry.

Together they travelled the world and went to the most far flung places. They always looked so happy and gushed about each other and how they couldn’t think of anyone else they could be happier to spend 24/7 with.

Comments from his friends and family all say how shocked they are, how he was always so happy and upbeat. He really REALLY lived his life to the max.

Since finding out about his death I cannot stop thinking about him. I didn’t know the guy and I feel so so sad and also gutted for his wife. How could someone so full of life see no other alternative other than to take his own.

I am so confused by my own feelings. And because I didn’t know him I feel that I have no right to feel affected. I keep zoning out and crying.

Can anyone make any sense of this for me? It feels so self indulgent.

I do know how you feel. My DH’s ex-fiancé died a few years back. I never met her but was absolutely devastated when we heard the news, more so than DH who didn’t seem to care. I just felt so sad for her as she had young children.

The whole situation for me triggered a depression I had never experienced before. Even now, whenever I think of her I just want to cry. I never even saw a photo of her.

Like you, I feel I have no right to feel this way and would never tell anyone IRL.

There’s no right or wrong way to feel. There are many reasons why someone commits suicide and sometimes on the outside they may seem perfectly fine.
You don’t have to be particularly close to someone to feel the effects of suicide.

Please do talk to someone to help you. There are various organisations to support you like

Mind.org.uk

Thecalmzone.net

supportaftersuicide.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/England-Help-is-at-Hand.pdf

But if you want to just type it out and process here by all means do and I can just be here x

Thank you for replies. It’s comforting to know that I am not the only one who has experienced these feelings.

It is making me feel a mixed range of emotions. That I should be living my life better and stop putting off all the things that I intend to get around to when I’m feeling braver. That my Fiancé and I should get married sooner rather than later and stop waiting until we have had our first baby (as we are not having much luck in that department). I also feel guilt at the idea of being happy, which I think is fairly common after losing someone you are close to but we weren’t.

I have experienced the loss of loved ones but never from suicide. I can now understand, if only from my distant perspective how it can be so devastating to those left behind.

Despite having never met him I wish I could have helped him. I cannot make sense of why and I cannot stop thinking about his poor wife who by the look of their relationship will feel like the other half of her is missing.

I did tell my partner about what happened and that it’s been on my mind a lot. I cried and he comforted me but I didn’t express the extent of it to him. Purely because I feel a bit weird for feeling this way.

It feels as though it is all connected to how it happened. Had it of been natural causes or an accident I think I wouldn’t be having the same reaction.

In some ways it's similar to a favourite celebrity dying. We don't know them but we feel a connection from seeing them on the internet or on TV etc.

You feel shocked and saddened which is the natural compassionate response.

I experienced similar but it was the death of a previous partner whom I loved but hadn't seen in over 20 years and I saw a post on Facebook about it and it sent me spiralling downwards for some time.

The initial shock though does pass and the period of grieving will run its natural course.

Such sadness does make you want to live your own life better or just to reflect on the good things you already have in your life but have perhaps taken for granted or overlooked.

Hope you're OK.

How awful. As a PP has said, there's no right or wrong way to feel and you can't control your emotions. In slightly different situations, I have felt this way a couple of times. The first was a few years ago, the first time I met a guy 1:1 in a sporting capacity he broke down and told me that he and his wife had just found out that her illness was terminal. He'd only found out the day before and I was the first person he'd told - despite literally having just met him. I didn't see him again for a few weeks after that and in that time I was so affected by what had happened that I would often just sob and felt so so grief-stricken - more for him though I think. Like you, I briefly mentioned it to my DH and told him that it had upset me but I don't think he fully understood and he actually got a little cross with the guy for putting me in that position.

The second time was actually recently and actually a mumsnetter whose baby died. I'd been following their story on social media and although it wasn't unexpected, it still came as such a shock to me and made me feel so heartbroken for their little one and them. And as you say, even though it felt like I knew them through seeing pictures and updates, obviously I didn't and felt like I had no right to feel sad.

I think perhaps it just shows how empathetic humans can be. I hope the feelings lessen for you

I met someone through volunteering who I probably saw 3 times but was so full of life and going places. 6 months later he died in a car crash and for weeks after finding out I would randomly cry for who he could have become so I totally get the overwhelming grief for someone who you sort of don't feel you deserve to feel so strongly about their death. You're speaking about it though and that's a good way to work through it.

It's very sad OP. And the fact that it came out of the blue. I lost a colleague that I job shared with. We'd both left the post, in her case due to ill health. I was still working in the same organisation when she took her life but only found out from other colleagues long after the funeral. They'd forgotten to tell me. We'd kept in contact via Facebook but then her posts stopped. She was such a lovely person and I was so sad for her. Her death really upset me. Be gentle with yourself. People touch you in ways you don't realise.

I’m like a pp who met (briefly) someone via volunteering who was wonderful, very full of life and really going places - someone who seemed to make an impact on everyone he met.
Very sadly when I was on maternity leave from volunteering he was killed in a car accident, and his death sent shockwaves through me and the whole community of volunteers - he wasn’t someone I knew well, or at all really, but it seemed such a waste of life for him to be taken so young. It’s a few years ago now but I still remember him and occasionally have a sad smile when he crops up in Facebook memories of mine, or our mutual friends.