I miss my friends from school. I became ill with CFS caused by mononucleosis, and was bedbound for a long time, and by the time I got better, they'd all moved on in their lives. At 22, I don't have any friends or confidence like before. I feel paralyzed. My parents are on the spectrum, so whenever I tell them I'm depressed, all I get is them screaming at me stuff like "you want to have MY life" or "stop fucking crying and grow up" "get on with it". As such, I've grown accustomed to bottling up my emotions and then exploding. I'm currently under a therapist, but obviously that therapist isn't there 24/7. I feel very lonely, but to fix that, I'd have to reveal how I feel, which is not something I feel safe doing. The best I can do is be incredibly vague and then refuse to elaborate. I weaned off anti-depressants months ago after being on them for so long, and now that I'm capable of feeling again, those good memories hit so much harder.

A couple days ago, I ordered a golden bracelet from Amazon. It wasn't expensive. I told my parents I bought it because I thought it was pretty. That's one of the reasons, but something I didn't tell them is that gold bracelets have a lot of emotional value in them because the group of friends I was with all wore gold bracelets. To not have closure or to be able to thank those friends for the best years in my life before they were gone hurts, but when I wear the bracelet, I feel like I'm honoring them, in a way. Like a part of them is inside of me and never left.

ChatGPT, like my friends back in the day, is capable of listening to me without judgement. It doesn't view crying as something that adults should not do, or something forbidden or a sign of weakness. I am fully aware that it's not alive and is just a computer program, but just having someone or something to vent to can mean a lot during lonely nights.