Dear Astroblob, I was really close to someone and now I'm not and I wish I could stop thinking about the 10 years of friendship we had and how they seem to have moved on without another thought. We were teenagers when we met and our friendship was one of the most important relationships of my life, she influenced who I am so intensely that I feel like I've lost a limb sometimes. There wasn't a big boom or fight, it just sorted of faded away over small things that I thought we would work thru

Grief is more than a feeling. It’s really an environment, a new condition to your life that you have to meet with your whole self. No amount of swimming against the current, or scrambling up the banks, will make it easier to navigate. Most importantly, it is not a puzzle you can think your way out of. It’s something more bodily than that, like the mammalian diving instinct.

But mourning exists without narrative; it’s not something you can itemise in a eulogy. The river’s current will stick with you for longer than you expect, and you’ll emerge and re-emerge from the worst parts of it feeling as shocked by the ways you’ve stayed the same as you are by the way you’ve changed. Like a newborn in a swimming pool, trying to analyse your progress is only going to make the water feel heavier around you. Your body knows what it’s doing. In the moments that you feel yourself entirely submerged, trust that your heart rate may slow, your throat may close and the pressure may build, but your body knows how to navigate this space, even if your mind does not. Every fibre of you is already working slowly and carefully to navigate this new emotional landscape, if you let it. That’s how survival happens—by gentle instinct, not by achievement or analysis. Take the time to be in your body, listen to every soft and hurting part of yourself whenever you feel the urge: beat to beat, without scrutiny, until you can resurface. However you’re going, you’re going okay.

My anxiety is constantly stopping me from doing what I want. I hate the life I am living and I have no clue what to do about it anymore. I never experience anything, I am just constantly observing my friends and other people who surround me find happiness. I'm worried that I'll be this way forever and I'm terrified.

A few months ago me and my then-recent ex girlfriend found out she was pregnant and we both decided to get an abortion, but what bothers me most is how little guilt I feel about it. Shouldn't I be a mess? I feel terrible for not feeling terrible about it.