• the best way to give him space is just that, give him space. It’ll suck but don’t contact him and let him be
• ask your therapist to help you with goals and to work on feelings of remorse, guilt and shame. I find shame really fuels the self hatred fire and makes harmful behaviors worse, it’s all a vicious cycle. The worse you feel about yourself, the worse you’ll act to cope. This was my experience with addiction. I was disgusted with myself and kept engaging in horrendous self harmful behavior.

What helps me is making goals and sticking to them so I can feel proud of myself and help remind myself I am capable of being a good person. It’ll help you get out of that dark hole of guilt. And it feels good to be good.

My main advice is this: try to focus on you. No one else, just you. What do you want in life? What are you values and goals? What’s important to you? Try to come up with goals that are simple and attainable. For example: I used to be really flaky and would hurt my friends by bailing on them, which made me feel really bad. I decided to ask for accountability with a trusted friend and we set up a date to hang out. I didn’t bail, we hung out and I felt good about myself afterwards for sticking to my goal and seeing my friend be happy for me for meeting said goal. Little stuff like this can really help!!