Ugh. That sounds incredibly hard. There’s a post on Tiny Buddha about what to do when your life falls apart that I wrote under a different pseudonym, if you want to read it. I had my life fall apart as well, about 2 years ago, and I’m not going to say it wasn’t hard to recover, but I did it. It sounds like you’re doing the right thing: caring for yourself even when you don’t feel like it, putting your life into a less stressful bywater so that you can focus on healing, and reconsidering your path. You’re young (half as old as I am), and I know that seems like a trite thing to say, but it does mean a lot when you’re my age. If you listen to yourself – which it sounds like you’re doing – then this time may prove to be just what you need to put your life on a track that will be more fulfilling to you. One thing I had to keep reminding myself was that everything that’s come before was not a “waste”. I lost a career that I had spent 17 years building. It felt like I had wasted that time, but now I know that the skills and experiences I had will be useful in my life going forward. The same is true of you – you may be a “dropout” (for now), but those skills haven’t gone away because you changed your path. They can still be useful in creating a new future for yourself.

I h0pe you can continue to take solace in nature and self-care and music.

Big hugs to you –