Set your alarm clock to go off 15 minutes earlier than you normally would. It won’t feel good but you’ll need it. I promise.

Wash your face. Hard. You’re not just washing off the guilty look of pillow talk really just being you screaming in to your pillowcase until you fall asleep, you’re washing off the dirt you’ve felt. You’re stopping the pain from showing under your eyes. Try not to look in the mirror.

Flip your pillows over. You can wash them when you come home, but for now, pretend nothing happened. Don’t shower because being vulnerable, even by yourself, is the last thing you need right now. Do it when you come home when you wash your pillows and sheets.

Take that extra 15 minutes and sit outside. It’s less than zero degrees out? Good. The cold will wake you up. Not the morning kind of wake up. The kind of wake up you need when something you love is being attacked and you have to save it. It’s okay if you’re not dressed. You decide what’s indecent. Not the mailman or the pastor who lives across the street.

Don’t make it a mission to tell anyone. No one needs to know you’re struggling. This is about you and you alone. If you’re at the point where you need to read (or write) this, you already know we’re all on our own and no one’s coming to save us. And that’s okay. You don’t need saving. Not today.

You’ll probably want to wear something that will help you hide, like a protective layer from the world. Don’t. Don’t find protection in your clothing. Put your clothes on for the sole reason that it’s damn hard for some people to deal with half of what you’ve dealt with and you’re doing it.

Eat. Real food. You need one of those breakfasts you see on I-Hop commercials not half a bottle of Jameson you stole from work. You won’t want it, but your body needs it. This is recovery.

Go to work. Go to school. Be gentle. The world was never gentle with you and you need to remember that’s not your fault. You probably won’t run in to anyone who feels the same as you who needs that kindness, but do it anyway. Just in case. You’re going to want to bare your teeth and make the world shake in your presence-how could a world full of poetry, art, books, science, architecture…be so cold? It’s not your job to figure that out right now. It’s your job to survive. You can take that question on when you don’t need instructions to get you through the day.

Learn. Learn more than you normally would. Knowledge is going to engage you in to the world and you can learn how to make it a good world. One that hurts less.

Write. Write down everything you need to. You can run heavy marker over the pages later if you need to remove the embarrassment of feeling this low. It’s okay.

Come home. Lock your doors six or seven times. Extra security. That’s okay. This is where you can collapse. Take a shower. If it hurts too much to look down-don’t. Your body is in this together with you. It’s not you against it and it’s not your fault who you are has been defined by it. You don’t have to stop hating it right now. You can still be angry, but use soap that smells nice. You might feel completely dehumanized by your body, but at least it can smell nice. Don’t forget to wash your sheets.

Wash your hair with dish soap. Know that this isn’t your mental breaking point where you’ve gone so crazy you can’t remember to use shampoo. Dish soap is used to clean animals caught up in oil spills and human pollution. If I’m not mistaken, that’s exactly you right now. So. Dish soap.

Eat. Again, real food not the last half of a bottle of Jim Beam hidden on top of your fridge. While you’re doing this, write. Write until you hit a word that stings. Then do your homework. Don’t play Ballads and Blues like you normally do because the music always hits harder on days like this and this is not the day to identify with tragedy. Don’t play something that will make you angry you missed out on a childhood. Don’t play something that’s going to remind you you’ve always been the one to save yourself.

Go to bed. It’s 8:30? Good. You need the rest. Pile your stuffed dinosaurs and bears all the way up to your neck and go to sleep. Leave a light on in the hallway if you need to. Or don’t. Because you’re okay in the dark. You always have been.