I wish I knew then what I know now :-) I wouldn't have shut myself "in" so much nor for so long. It's all about habit. We get "good" at what we practice and if you get "small" and cozy and stay that way, you will have a harder time is something happens to that small, cozy world? It's like whether you want a workshop or an old screwdriver and a hammer and call it a day and then find you need to build yourself something.

You ever watch any of the Survivor shows? You know how they wish for more tools, food, resources; well, going "out" is a resource. What interests do you have at home? Cooking? Go to the library and check out a couple cookbooks and find a couple new recipes to try with exotic ingredients that require you go to that specialty grocery store across or in the next town. That's "out".

I always hated when T went on breaks and I tried to go on breaks at the same time or come up with "projects" to keep me busy or interested so I didn't have so much time to just sit and wish for her and the interest/comfort of therapy. Sometimes though I hyper-focused on therapy when she wasn't there and that could be an interesting/helpful project too; recording all my dreams and writing up my thought processes (and my thought processes get pret-ty convoluted :-) and holding every little thing up to the light of the therapy process and what I'd tell my T when she got back, etc. My absolutely "favorite" experience was when I had to put my cat to sleep and tried to comfort myself initially, while I was still at the vets making the decision, "that's okay, T will help" and then the immediate realization that T was away for another 2-3 weeks. . . Treat your away experiences like scientific experiments and look at them hard from third person. That lets you rest a bit between being one of the "things" being experimented on and being the observer both.