My son committed suicide 1/27--he was 25 years old

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

85. I am so, so sorry.

I have not gone public with this here on DU before, but I will now.

I lost my younger son to suicide in 2017. He was 30 years old. He'd been struggling with depression for some years, and planned ahead. He actually wrote a suicide note four months before he actually did it.

He took some sort of overdose, which he also obtained via the internet. Fortunately, there was no HAZMAT to worry about.

I'll add this: I am very glad that he didn't do something messy like a gun. Nor did he jump off a bridge (he lived in Portland, OR, lots of possibilities there) so that we'd never really know what happened. He had a normal final night of his life, going to a bar and having a couple of beers with a friend, then came home and took the overdose.

I am incredibly fortunate that the night before he took his life he called me and we talked for well over an hour, probably the longest phone conversation we'd ever had. We talked about lots of things. He expressed regret over the failure of a particular relationship in his life. I forget other stuff. I wish I could have said something that would have made him stay, but that wasn't possible. I realized much later he was saying goodbye to me, without overtly saying so. I'm lucky in that last conversation our final words to each other were "I love you."

I know what you are going through. I can tell you that you will never not miss him, will never not feel sad that he's gone, will never stop having outbreaks of grief for him. You will spend the rest of your life wondering where he might be now. That's okay.

I agree with those who say it is not your fault, what you said did not make a difference, not really. He was planning to do this, had thought it out carefully. IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT.

I happen to have strong spiritual beliefs that include my seeing him again eventually. If you have any spiritual/religious beliefs, I hope they bring you some degree of comfort. I mean that.

I will add this. We (meaning my ex and I) learned about his death on Facebook, because one of his cousins had gone to his page and had seen postings from his friends who'd learned about it. That sounds much worse than it really is. His roommate had tried calling me a couple of times that day (roommate had the unfortunate and unpleasant duty of finding him) to let me know, but never left a message. When the cousin called my ex, he looked at FB, then called me. Yes, it was shocking, but it was better than not knowing for several days.

Also, thanks to FB there was a truly joyous celebration of his life in Portland, OR, where he'd lived the last 6 or 7 years of his life. Without FB, it would have been years, literally years before all who knew him could find out. As it is, an exchange student from Ireland whom my son had known when he was a freshman and the other guy a senior in college, only recently looked at my son's FB page and learned the news. He posted something kind, and I was able to respond to him. This is why I push back at those who trash FB. It really does have its place.

I know that right now you are pretty much in the worst place you are going to be. I don't know if I can say it will get better, but I think I can say that it well get easier. The immediacy of this grief will diminish. Your life will go on.

I have one other son, otherwise known as My Son The Astronomer here on DU. As sad as I am to lose the one son, I'm even sadder that the other one lost his only brother.

Hugs and much love to you.

From your DU family.