Coping with suicide of my son? (trigger alert - not graphic)

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I am looking for ways to cope with the suicide of my son.

He moved out in October, returned in December and killed himself a week later, aged 17.
There were a number of reasons for this; he was grieving over his father, his girlfriend had left him, he had crashed his car and quit his job.
He also was a drug user for all his teenage years, which contributed to his emotional instability and inability to deal with life. I did suggest to him in the past that he may have ASD, but he refused to consider that, because he didn't want there to be something "wrong" with him. He refused therapy etc. While he was living with me his behaviour had boundaries, but he couldn't handle himself independently. He went on a major drug binge when he was away from home which made him psychotic and the come-down was terrible. I am so devastated that he did not tell me the state of his mind or the magnitude of his binge (he should have been in hospital to detox). Even though we weren't best friends, (he preferred bongs and xbox), we did have a functional relationship and I was always assisting him with advice and practical matters.

Since his death, I have discovered that he told a number of his facebook "friends" that he was suicidal, including adult relatives.
I am having trouble understanding why none of them contacted me; instead they agreed that I was an idiot, a fat b***h, and that I didn't care about him (!?). It has been difficult reading his facebook messages, which include him making comments about purposefully killing himself so that I would be the one to find him dead. He did it just before I got home from work.

I think that I am dealing with the trauma aspects ok, to get calm again after such a horrible experience. Though this will be ongoing. I will have to figure out some way of remembering my son in happier times.
The part that I am struggling with now, is how to interact with people? I manage going to work, working in silence, then going home to be alone.

Even though I understand how mental illness affects people, this experience has reinforced my belief that people are essentially un-knowable. This makes me even less sociable and less confident in relating; what am I relating to? Only a tiny part of someone else's consciousness, with a backdrop of chaos and deceit.

I am also so angry with the relatives who did not contact me with such important information.
I can understand that my son's friends (also druggie teenagers) didn't know what to do, and came up with great ideas like "I'll kill myself too" and "don't do what your mother says, just pretend to go along with it"; but I think I will never be able to forgive the adults. It seemed more important to them all, to be having their "intimate" facebook conversations, than to deal with the real-world situation.

Because talk-therapy is not effective for me, I am looking for non-verbal ideas about how to process all this.
Or, useful statements that I can tell myself, to somehow re-integrate with people and reassure myself (or at least, create a mental illusion) that they are not all as*holes.

i'm very sorry for you, don't count on it being easy any time soon

I'm so sorry for your loss. Are there grief support groups you could explore?

I'm so very sorry you have to go through this.
I wish you healing and peace.

I am so very sorry for your loss.

A grief support group is a good idea. There are also groups for survivors of a family suicide.

I am shocked that with all the "cries for help" your son posted on social media, no one acted. Shocked and disgusted.

My daughter was very deeply affected by a friend of hers committing suicide. His father posted on his Facebook page that nobody should feel it was their fault - knowing that it's a reaction some people have. He might have been particularly thinking about the young man's girlfriend, whose earlier marriage had ended in the husband's suicide, and thus she might be particularly vulnerable.

I think that father did a caring and positive thing with his Facebook post, an act of caring and forgiveness. It's possible at some point, you can take a similar stand.

But right now, take care of you. Sending you tender hugs.

My heart goes out to you. I can't imagine the hurt you must be feeling.

I am sorry for the loss of your son.

When my mom was nearing death, they prescribed hospice care for her. Hospice care is a type of care and philosophy of care that focuses on the palliation of a chronically ill, terminally ill or seriously ill patient's pain and symptoms, and attending to their emotional and spiritual needs. Many times they use volunteers. They not only focus on the patients but also their families. After she passed, they approached me many times and asked how I was doing. Did I need any help. This type of organization may provide you some help.

As others have recommended, grief counseling may help.

The trauma from this tragic event has produced a great deal of stress in you. Generally this stress energy is locked away in your muscles and nervous system. It needs to be vented. So although this suggestion might seem odd, I will recommend you find someplace alone and very secluded and scream at the top of your lungs. Picture all the people who could have done something, said something and didn't and just scream at them with all your might. This will vent the stored stress energy in your neck and vocal cords.

My son threatened suicide twice. He has always felt that all his problems are my fault. Despite therapy, etc, etc, he continues to believe this, and for the past five years will have nothing to do with me.

The reason I am responding is because you asked how to remember the good times. I have struggled with that also. It seemed to me that his hatred, alienation, and disparaging negated all the other times earlier.

I have since decided that the good times were still good and I permit myself occasional glimpses of that. I think that with time you will also be able to salvage some of the earlier love and caring.

thank you for your replies and ideas.

I do a lot of physical work and exercise which helps and monitor my heart rate and sleep with a fitbit. I am not usually interested in gadgets, but it reminds me I am still alive and not to fool myself with how much sleep I'm getting. It also has a short guided breathing app which is useful for calming down before I go to sleep.

I am not having much success in finding happy memories of him. When I think of him at a younger age, or look at photos, I mostly notice the disgusting changes that happened after he went to live with his father from 11-13 years old (his choice, not mine). He went from being a great kid to a drug addict and school dropout by age 12.

I have found an amusing video on his iCloud though.... where he sets his hair on fire by accident while lighting his bong. He wasn't hurt and thought it was very funny. That might be as good as it gets.

I'm so very sorry to hear about your son. As some others have expressed, I am disgusted at these so-called friends (and relatives ?!) who seem to have encouraged him to go down the destructive path, even by not acting when they should have. In your place, I would want payback. I might even seek to take legal action. He sounds like he really needed help and guidance but nobody was willing to give it to him.

All I can say is don't stop until your heart is at peace about things. If you're angry, do something about it. People need to be held accountable for their actions, and the internet medium is no excuse to act inhuman. At the very least, you need to tell your relatives how you feel about their behaviour. I believe this is the best way to get to a place where you can trust people again. You need closure.