What would happen if you actually let yourself feel this sadness instead of telling yourself you’ve no “right” to feel sad? What if one of your children came to you and said they felt sad, would you tell them to stop feeling that way because of all the toys they have? I hope not.

You have a number of pretty severe-sounding medical issues, some of which may be aggravated or even caused by stress or mental causes. But you ignore it and pretend nothing’s wrong. Again, if your child came to you saying they were feeling sick, would you tell them to just pretend everything’s OK and that you don’t believe in tummy-aches?

Just look at the last line you wrote. What is wrong? You are bullying yourself. You are hating on yourself non stop and as a result, your self is in severe distress, and instead of listening, your response is “Well, I can’t imagine what could possibly be wrong. Anyway, gotta keep going, I’m the Duracell bunny.”

Please, you’re not the Duracell bunny. You’re a human being deserving of kindness and respect. You have the right to feel everything you’re feeling. You have the right to have your wishes heard. You have a right to not yet be over the things that happened in the past. You have the right to have a hard time with everything that’s going on. Could you try to treat yourself a little bit better?

I think it would be helpful to hash this out with a therapist or doctor or advisor or religious teacher or your local hippie/witch/healer person. I know that’s not cheap, but I’m not sure how much of this you can tackle on your own or with the help of some faceless internet people. It’s OK to need help with this. It’s OK to feel bad. It’s OK to not know how to stop hating on yourself, but I hope you can see that that’s what you’re aiming for.

Be well, friend.