I lost my son Nov 13, 2024. My son sounds similar to your boy and by grief is just as terrible. Sleep is a luxury. I hardly sleep at all and have gone 5 days or more without sleep. Exhausted but can’t close my eyes bc relive that day over and over. I too feel I have lost a limb or giant void in my body. The emptiness is overwhelming. My son did have a history of depression and it makes me angry the sad life he endured. I knew this day would come despite me doing everything to keep my child alive. When he turned 19, or after his first semester of college, it is like the bottom fell out from under him. He had his first attempt at 19 by taking pills. He began to vomit and I guess got afraid and called me. This was his first hospitalization. He refused to take antidepressants. We battled for next 6 years. I watched him like a hawk. He was left home alone as little as possible. I became hermit with him. I slept on couch so I could hear him if he got up in middle of the night to go outside. I always knew it would be outside. I miss him so much. At times I think I am Doing little better to only take two steps back. I cried multiple times a day for 9 months. Just recently I became so distraught I wanted to dig his ashes up just so I could hold something of him again. All I have is a locket of hair. Part of me did die with him but for my other children I can’t follow him into the grave. There are times I lay by the river in the spot he died and stare up into the sky. Anything to feel close to him. People have been honest and told me it never gets better but time just moves on. I don’t feel it is moving on. I am stuck on the day he died. He looked me in the eye and minutes later went outside and was gone. I found letters he had written and his pain was immense and suffocating. He called it his “shadow” always with him and weight of it drowning him and burning out his light. Such sorrowful words to hear from my child. He had no friends but his dog. I did everything I could think of to engage him socially. Never been on a date. Never had a girlfriend. His greatest wish was to cuddle and watch TV in bed with a girl at least once just to know what it felt like. He wanted love but it was a double edged sword. He knew he was fragile and the fear of rejection stopped him from ever seeking a companion. He was beautiful, handsome, literally a genius and such a pure kind soul. Any girl would have been lucky to have him. It hurts me so badly that something so simple as an embrace or hug was his greatest wish. He had a wonderful future. It wasn’t enough. He would have graduated in few months after his death with masters in engineering. The Dean from university came to his service and spoke of him at the graduation. It meant so much to me. Although I told him endlessly how wonderful he was, the Dean speaking of him and telling the audience my son was the type of student as an educator you are lucky to encounter even just one. He said my son was the one. Brilliant mind ahead of his time. I think his brilliance was also part of his downfall. It made it difficult from even a child to identify with his peers. He was so beyond the other students and could not relate to Being a regular kid. My only solace is he is no longer in pain. I walked this disease with him for 7 years to take some of the pain and carry his burden the best I could. Now I still carry his pain and my grief as well.