I know that you are struggling right now and I am sorry. All we are required to do is to get through. Getting through now consists not only of recognizing what this is, but avoiding making permanent life choices, and paying attention to how we tend to overcriticize ourselves when we aren’t fully feeling in control. You’re never ever really in control anyway but giving yourself a bit of a break when you’re like this may seem like nothing to someone else but it is critical for you and standard operating procedure going forward. It’s no fun to hear it could be worse but it could be. I’m sorry you have to go through this. But I’m grateful for you, that you are trying, even when it doesn’t make sense, and you are hanging on, even when it feels like you can’t anymore. Comparing your problems to other people’s problems doesn’t fix anything and wastes time you’ll never get back. This time can be used to self-soothe. This time can be used to be grateful for what you do have and what you have survived. I know that you think that reaching out to the person that you love will help something, but it never has before. You can control this impulse. Remember, this person does not feel the same way about you, does not want to support you, does not care about you and ultimately, in the grand scheme of your happiness, peace, and joy, does not matter. I’m sorry that this is so difficult to accept and increasingly so when you are having difficulty with your emotions. When you feel like this, this is not the time to seek attention from anything external. This coping time that you need to take can be for trying to find ways to show yourself some of the love you so desperately need and can’t fully get from anyone else but you. Watering your own soil will help next time you’re struggling. Every growing thing needs fuel and when you are on empty like this, you need to recharge. I’m sorry that you feel abnormal because this is what it takes to keep you on track and safe. If it keeps getting easier and easier to survive, the better and better you will feel for longer and longer. No, it’s not fair. No, it is not fun. No, it’s not something you’d wish on your worst enemy to have to live like this. Had you not been strong enough to hope to begin with, you’d have never made it this far, although it seems like there is no other way but this path and it will never end. It will end when you end. And it’s clearly not your time to end today. You can handle this. I’m sorry that you do not have family members or caregivers who are concerned about whether you live or die. It is not helpful and probably not what you want to hear that you’re not alone in this but unfortunately many on the waterball have that same deficit, and may struggle the way you do, and have found not giving in to self-pity or self-harm for one more day is a demonstration of strength and hope. You have handled worse. Maybe writing all this down will not only help you process what you need to do to keep going but who knows, maybe someone else on the waterball needed to read it too, so they can keep going as well, even if neither of you feels like it. You are smart and competent and if any person deserves love at all, then we all do, and that includes me/you/us. I know you are tired but you have opted not to give up, so until you get a second wind, relax, slow down, be patient, focus, and breathe deeply. Remember this too shall pass but swiftly- you are safe now and everything is okay. Nobody is perfect. We’ve been able to isolate this dramatic shift in our ability to deal with life in general to a specific time frame, and therefore understand that it will come again and climax and go away once more. Everything is okay. Future you loves you and that will have to be enough for now. Everything, is, okay. You’ll be around long enough to see. Believe in that today.