Dear Roxanne, I am so very sorry to hear of all the sad and horrendous things you are dealing with. I have a suggestion I have made to other commenters. Go visit my tweet (you’ll need to get a twitter account to see it) at: https://twitter.com/MarkGoulston/status/960916544946544641. Scroll through the comments other than mine and you will read one after the other of people sharing the most sad and horrendous events from their lives. Reach out to people and show them compassion and encouragement. Even simply saying, “I read what you said and I’m so sorry to hear what you’ve been through,” will be more than sufficient. What will begin to happen is that these total strangers -especially the ones who feel completely alone — will begin to respond to you with thanks and I think it will begin to be uplifting to you. Try this out and see if it helps you. If it does, you might begin suggesting that your children find similar supportive communities for them on the Internet, where the support and compassion between people is making a difference.

One of the problems in trying to support or be compassionate to your children or even you from anyone not going through it currently is that your children (or you) are likely to think, “That’s easy for you you say. You’re not going through this.” That is why a compassionate and supportive community like the one connected to my tweet is working, because all the people commenting have or are going through similarly difficult times.

Take good care and write back after you try the above.