Girlfriend (20f) suddenly no longer likes me, I (20m) think she's just completely shut down emotionally
TL;DR: My girlfriend of almost 4 years has been under insane amounts of stress for months and within the past 3 weeks has gone from loving to completely numb. Yesterday she told me she wants to break up because she "literally doesn't like me." I don't believe this is how she actually feels, I told her I loved her and would give her space, but now I don't know what to do or whether I made the right call.
My girlfriend (20f) and I (20m) have been together for almost four years. We met in high school and now attend the same university. She is my person, my absolute favorite thing about life, and I am deeply in love with her. She loved me just as much, but about three weeks ago it seems as if everything has changed.
Some context first. Without getting into specifics, her family is falling apart. She likely won't see her parents for a very long time, and for the past six months she has essentially been a parent to her two younger siblings while working and going to school full time. She is carrying an enormous amount for anybody, let alone someone our age with as little life experience as we have.
Around the same time, I was going through my own struggles and became distant. I wasn’t cruel or hurtful, just not fully there. Things that I thought were light banter really hurt her. It wasn't constant, but it hurt her, and I didn't see it.
Three weeks ago, she hit it off with a new friend and I noticed something felt off between us. I brought it up twice and both times she said things were fine. The next day she opened up about how my distance had been affecting her. I told her I heard her, that I understood, and that it wouldn't happen again now that I knew. She asked for a day to think. I said okay.
When we talked again, she told me she loved me very much and that I was her favorite person, but that right now everything felt platonic. It hurt, but I understood. I told her I loved her, that I wasn't going anywhere, and that we could work through this once things settled down for her. For the next ten days I tried to be as loving and present as possible. The conversations stayed one sided. I told myself she had a lot going on.
Yesterday, I sat her down intending to tell her how proud I was of her and how strong she had been. Instead, she told me she wanted to end things. That she felt awful being with me because she "literally doesn't like me," and that it wasn't fair to watch me be so loving while she felt nothing. As you can imagine, it destroyed me.
I told her I thought she was angry at the world right now and taking it out on me, and that was okay. I reminded her that three weeks ago she baked me a cake and made me clay figurines just because. I told her this wasn't her. The thing is that she would never even say something like this to someone she despised, because she is one of the kindest, most careful people I know.
I went home and sent her a message. I told her I didn't think we should end things, that I loved her, and that I would give her space and be here when she was ready. I also reached out to her best friend and asked her to please be there for her, that she isn't herself right now and needs people around her.
Now I'm just lost. I don't know how to spend these days while I wait. I don't know if I did the right thing. I don't know whether to be more scared of what she says when she reaches out, or more worried about what she's going through. Most of all, I don't know whether to believe she has genuinely become numb or whether she truly doesn't like me anymore. And if it's the latter, how does that happen in three weeks? How do I be the person she needs, and retain this relationship?