I [F35] am struggling through things at the moment. My boyfriend [M33] is in the depths of a mental health crisis. He has very severe anxiety exacerbated by his autism and he's had suicidal feelings for a few weeks now. He left work on Monday in tears on the phone to me, saying he was going home. He lives with his parents but usually spends a lot of time at mine. He told me he was going to spend some time at home with his family around him to work on getting better, and that we'd still talk, and at some point he would come and see me in the daytime but not stay over. 

I felt utterly torn between his clear distress and my feelings of rejection. I interpreted this as him saying, "I don't want to be around you as it doesn't help me get better and I prefer my family over you." To add a bit of context - we recently argued because I feel he prioritises his parents over me at times when it's not appropriate,which is feeding into this. 

I asked him why he didn't want to be with me and he got frustrated. Said he had to do what he thinks is best for him right now. Initially I handled it like that and then left a bit of distance because I felt rejected... But I faced up to it and after some reflection and talking to a couple of friends, I came back to him telling him I supported his decisions and to message whenever he wanted to talk. I decided not to take his late or sometimes sparse replies personally, nor to put any pressure on him, but to be loving and supportive from a distance and let him come to me. 

This is really, really hard. Rationally I get it. I understand what he's doing. Emotionally, I feel like he's going to finish things at any minute, I hate replying to a message and he doesn't respond for hours, I hate him going off radar early evening because he's probably fallen asleep and not responding until late the next morning. I hate not knowing when he wants to see me again. 

I'm also finding it incredibly hard not being able to talk to him about my own mental health issues. Normally he's super great at supporting me, but I can't burden him at the moment and I feel lost. 

Can anyone offer any words of advice on how to navigate this appropriately by myself? 

TL;DR Boyfriend going through his own mental health issues and wants space; we're still together but I'm finding it hard to deal with, need advice on how to cope.