There are (many) times I don’t want to keep going. You’re not supposed to admit to that, or if you do, you’re supposed to be doing very specific things. These are things that don’t work for me because of my very weird past and the way I work. I have come to accept that very often, I just don’t want to live anymore.

What works for me when this happens is to go “Yup. Definitely wish I could die.” And then I don’t. I just keep living. I tell myself that the reason is that people still need me, but I am not 100% sure that a) this is true or b) what I would do if I truly thought it weren’t. But that is a problem for another day. I just tell myself this until (eventually) I don’t feel like that anymore (for unrelated reasons, because really, not dying because other people need you to live is actually dumb). And then I skip happily on through life till it happens again.

So far it’s working. Thanks for your article.