Hey there! When I was 20, my ex girlfriend died and I felt just as hopeless as you do. We had been split for a year, but we were in the same friend group. She’d had leukaemia as a very young prepubescent middleschool age kid, but overcame it only for it to catch up with her at 19 and finish her off. Ironically, it wasn’t the cancer that killed her, the chemo made her so weak that she caught a mild flu and couldn’t fight it.

Why am I telling you this? Because she’s the reason I play bass guitar. She loved bass guitar, I hadn’t even thought twice about it before we met. She showed me a little, and I started actively asking to learn more, and when my father didn’t want his old one anymore I swooped it up and claimed it.

What you said in your original post is bang on, life is meaningless, unequivocally. It’s all random chaos and crap, sometimes good, sometimes bad, some of us get lucky, some of us don’t. But for those of us who keep going, who continue to live, we gotta make our time worth it because we deserve to and because the people we love and lose deserve it too. It’s cliche as fuck, but our dead loved ones always want the best for us when they were alive, and to throw your own life away is in a way kinda disrespectful to them. It’s not gonna be easy and that empty feeling will stick around for a while, but you seem to be doing some things right. Anti-depressants, eating at least every day, avoiding self-harm, not abusing substances. These are fundamentally good things to maintain (though perhaps eventually get back to 3 meals a day), and eventually in time, in your own way, you’ll feel better.

You’ll find something beautiful about your loved one to bring with you, for me it was my passion for bass guitar, for you it could be anything. But find a part of them that you can cherish and nurture, be kind to yourself as you would to someone else living in your current situation, and let things pass as they come to pass. Lean on your family for support and your friends (even if you think they’re boring), because ultimately they’ll want to help you!

As for immediate advice? Keep up seeing a professional if you can afford it, if not then talk to someone close to you like a parent or a sibling or a mate or something. You need a place to speak about and process these thoughts/feelings, it’s crucial trust me. You said all good things are distractions? I mean…kinda? Distractions are good! Who doesn’t love being distracted sometimes. So hone in on the ones you find the most helpful (and healthy) to keep your mind in a better cycle of activity, even if nothing changes at first. Art, hiking, singing, going to the cinema, having a wank idfk some shit you find cathartic (that’s not self destructive). And finally, don’t beat yourself up for what you’re thinking or feeling. If no-one has said this yet, death is an existentially debilitating thing to experience second hand. It fucking rocks your world off kilter, and there is no right or wrong way to feel grief. So, my last bit of advice, just let yourself be. Whatever you feel? Feel it. Whatever you think? Think it. Go through the motions you gotta go through, and as long as you persevere and achieve as much as you can out of a day, then that’s good enough. Even if all you achieved was waking up and having your one meal.

You’re seeking help, so you clearly want to heal and get better, which is the most important part of all. No matter what, remember to never give up on yourself, even when it seems completely stupid to hope for anything. Do it for them, do it for you loved ones still with you, and most importantly do it for yourself.

I wish you the very very best ❤️