I need my own clone to talk about all those difficult things that make me want to crave chocolaty desserts to make me feel better. Really, they feel like a variant of existential concerns. They make me wanna hide out in a dark place.

Its not about death though. Its about making sure I'm living a life worth living. Worth living by standards that span societies over 100s of years. By standards that I have inherited. Any indications to the contrary make me feel little.

No matter who you speak with, that unbreakable barrier exists. I end at my skin, my concerns begin and end with my skin. I have had care. External, distanced care, not empathy (not often enough) that breaks that barrier. And how could it. The other person is limited by their life's limited resources.

That real true empathy heals. If there's one thing I'm learning, no one can make a profession of it and still continue to unadulteratedly empathize. You can't do that for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.

There are only a few clients with whom I forget the divide. When I truly empathize, I hurt. It brings back my own pain of one kind or another. That is why the distance is necessary.

That connection though is also what makes me love what I do. That connection is what I want.

That connection is also what brings moments of loneliness, of realization that I end at my skin. That my life is experienced by only me and must be lived by my standards.

I'm not sad right now, or lonely. I'm musing. I'm distracting myself from the initial ache, that I can describe in CBT terms. But it doesn't fix it. What fixes it is gathering your bearings and making this life worth living, a little at a time.