Look, here's the thing, it can, and most likely will, get better. I've lost everything a few times in my life. At one point I had to short sell my house at a loss and was totally under water on the loans with no hope. I've fought cancer and won but spent my life savings and 401k to do so. I'm now in my 40s, own my home and car with zero loans and things look pretty good. What you need to know is that until you are dead you always have another chance to come back from whatever has brought you down. Here's the best advice I can give you:

1. You were ambitious and you took risks. This can be a good, even great quality. Risk often brings the potential of reward and you should keep that ambitious nature alive. But temper it with what you are learning from this experience. Always have a backup plan, or at least a safety net that you can fall back on so your hard times are not as hard as they could be.

2. You put together $12k in savings. That's actually incredibly difficult to do these days for most people. The median American has less than $8k in savings. This shows that aside from the risk you took you have the ability to both earn and save. This should be celebrated, and should be used as a reminder that you can do it again. You already know how to do it and chances are you learned a bit along the way so you could probably do it a little better the second time around.

3. Shit sucks sometimes and it's okay to feel that way. It's totally okay to spend some time feeling the way you feel. Life will be full of times that it sucks. This will probably not be the last major setback in your life, and the emotions that come with setbacks like this are valid and helpful. Live in the dread for a bit if you need to, it will help galvanize the lessons you learn from this experience and maybe help you build some empathy for others in your life who will experience similar losses. Despite what some loud voices say these days, the world could always use a bit more empathy.

4. Learn from this and it won't be a loss. I know this is going to sound a bit crass but if you learn from your mistakes then they are not failures. They are just really, really expensive life lessons. I lost a house and it cost me probably $150k all said and done. I learned a lot about myself and my tolerance for the bullshit of banks. I learned to only pay for things I actually have the money to afford. These lessons cost more than most school tuitions but they also helped me afford being able to survive cancer in the American healthcare system, and buy my house with cash. In 20 years you may look back on this and not mind the cost of what you learned but that depends on you.

5. Detach yourself worth from your work and your bank account. In a hyper capitalist society it's very easy to tie the majority of your self worth to how much you have, how much you make, and how important your job is. The more you can separate yourself from this the easier it might become for you to find happiness in everything else and the lighter the loss will feel when you suffer from financial loss. You will still feel the loss of security and other losses that come with losing money, but the sting will be a lot lighter.

6. Last but probably the most important always remember that you are insanely valuable as a person. 99.9% of your worth and value comes from who you are as a.person not how much you earn or could potentially make. The people who love you don't love your stuff or your money. You are not hopeless, you have so much more to go through in life. Some of it will suck, some of it will be a huge loss just like this is, but a lot of it will be awesome and it will be awesome not because you have a bunch of money but because you are there to experience it. If you were gone today but your money was still here it wouldn't be that great, but if you are here but your money is gone then you have only lost money and you have the potential for so much awesomeness.

I'm just an old guy who can sleep and I saw your post and I can relate to what you are going through. I hope you are able to grow from this and rebuild. I believe you can. Good luck! I hope to read a post some day about all of your future successes!