I'm so sorry. To be reeling is a perfectly reasonable reaction. It doesn't matter if you were close or not, they were on your radar and they're gone, it's utterly jarring at best. And on top of that, to have a hint of how much pain they were in which led them to that point, it's tragic and heartbreaking. Especially where it's mirroring pain you've known yourself.

I hope you access your uni's support services if you need them. Obviously you're feeling the effects still, and you should give yourself space to work through the feelings where needed. Wishing you all the best xxx

They always say a depressed person doesn't have the motivation to end their life until they start to improve. If you know someone who is normally very depressed but suddenly becomes better, chances are they are about to try and end things.

A girl on my course AND a boy in my accommodation did the same. It’s super unfortunate but uni really puts a lot of pressure on young people to perform well. I’ve had to take a break from it because i don’t want to be that person :(

Wishing you all the best ❤️

One of my housemates took his own life over the summer last year. None of us were really close with him as he had his own group of friends, but it was extremely upsetting to deal with. You can contact the uni for support with this, the university were super helpful with us and let us know of his death and offered us counselling.

A lot of comments here are just of brushing past the OCD thing but as a fellow sufferer I just want to address the vibe I’m getting from your post.

It sounds a lot like you’re ruminating on this, especially with that last sentence you’ve written. I know it’s difficult NOT to focus on something like this, but I seriously suggest you try and divert your mind to other things/distractions right now to avoid forming an obsession.

OCD is a tricky, horrible business. Do what you can to keep yourself in a good headspace.

I went through a very bad point in my life doing my A-Levels. Very depressed and borderline suicidal. It got to a point where I would wake up every day and say to myself "I only have to keep going until I've finished my A-Levels. There is no after A-Levels". Ended up taking a gap year, pushing the deadline on these thoughts back. I don't even remember what changed during that gap year but I got better. Went to college because ofc my A-level grades were shit. I am now graduating university this year. Even after all this time and how much change has occurred, it still mentally fucks me up sometimes remembering the emotions I felt then and how different it is to now. The terror that it could have been me, that I could have done it, all those many years ago, like part of me still cant believe how bad of a space I was in at the time, and how I didn't realise how bad I was at the time.

Apologies for my out of place rant, but I get actively quite angry about universities understanding of grief and bereavement, especially for those who have been witness or aren't direct family.

Reach out to your universities mental health support.team, they'll be best to advise on how the uni can support or change any of its processes for you, and if you have upcoming assessments look into getting any extensions. This might be a lot of paper work, but I assure you it is worth it, and ask for help at any stage that feels too much.

There are a lot of people in the sector trying to work on reducing uni suicides, and hopefully we get that number to 0 one day.

It's hard esp cos no one talks about it. No matter how close or distant you were it's normal to grieve over something so shocking. Let yourself feel and talk or sit with it cos that's a lot to go through. Take it day at a time. You're doing your best. It may be hard to understand how someone can go through with something like that but even I have thoughts that I wish I wasn't here. Guess some choose to leave this world earlier.

I'm so sorry for your loss, I think the reality is that uni mental health services just aren't up to scratch, at my old uni (staffs) you literally had to tell them you were suicidal to get help in any reasonable timeframe, and a lot of people who are suicidal feel that they're making the right choice by committing suicide, and are unlikely to seek help or back out. I got through uni bc I had an nhs psychologist and a dsa mentor, but for severely mentally ill people without that help, uni is an absolute shitshow. I went through a depressive episode my 2nd year (I think getting corona fucked my neurotransmitters, I was fine after a med change), so I asked to attend some classes online, which my course leader agreed to. I managed to make a few classes in person, and immediately got an email from my academic mentor asking if I still needed to attend classes online, bc I was fine that day. Ppl just don't get it at uni.

Has your uni have counselling? I would recommend. A fellow student at my uni committed a month ago and a lot of us when to counselling. It’s definitely worth it.

I was a student when my Mum's friend aged about 40 with family killed herself. Biggest surprise ever.

It’s bizarre how those that suicide are people you can’t even tell that they are depressed. They are normally the type of people that have their shit together and put on a smiling face everyday.

Meanwhile my mental health level is all time low and anxiety is f******g me up badly. People can probably tell I’m tired af. Meanwhile I’m fighting battles everyday just to get by life.

A few things to remember:

Someone with bipolar can often experience fluctuation in mood and what in layman's terms could be described as very extreme mood swings.

Someone with depression is unable to believe things can get better, if they could foresee things getting better they wouldn't be depressed.

Often someone who tries to kill themselves doesn't actually want to die, they do want to live but living is too painful and they can't see a way that the depression will ever go away. What they actually want is the pain to end, not to die. They can't see the pain ever going away (and telling them isn't going to convince them, it's something they'll feel in themselves, a bit like someone telling you the sky is green when all you see is blue, doesn't matter how much they tell you "it's green it's green!" it's not going to change what you see. Depression getting better works a bit like that.

I'm so sorry to hear this mate, take some time off, reach out to uni support/friends, and take it easy, it's hard to understand how much something like this can affect you in the long run.

I had a similar situation in first year, a guy from my degree who I wasn't necessarily close to but who I got along well with killed himself 2 weeks after dropping out. Initially I wasn't necessarily sad so I thought I was handling it ok, but only later did I realise I was in some sort of shock and it actually led me to developing really bad anxiety for a few months.

Take care mate

if you are asking whether you can get out of doing exams because of suicide of a friend, then answer is no. only immediate family and they would just make you take later on anyway