Some of my personal lessons I've learned.
Take a moment to think about scale and perspective of your troubles. Not to discount what you are going through, but to help settle even just a tiny bit. If things could be worse, then maybe they're not so bad. You are going through very horrible events and I am so sorry. I use "scale and perspective" to remind myself to count my blessings and also to acknowledge that there are folks who wish they only had my problems.
Recognize and acknowledge the good in what is around you and express gratitude for it. Chances are that no matter how horrible the moment you are in right now, you will have days in the future when you will wish you had this moment back.
Find and celebrate wins. Choose tasks that seem embarrassingly simple and undeserving of celebration, and feel the joy when you complete the task as if was a major milestone... chances are, it is a major milestone now (scale and perspective). Recognize how often we feel negative emotions over the littlest things, if you didn't show this morning like you had planned you might like a complete loser. Well, EFF that! When you do take your shower, celebrate to the same extreme! You make the rules in these head games, make them in your favor and even cheat to win.
Comfort food, rest, exercise, and hydration.
Say to yourself "I love you, Lupinate" (your name). This may be surprisingly difficult to say and to hear, keep doing it.
My prayers are up for you. We need you
We need a new unit of measure. Call it "Work Life Hours" How many hours of labor a taxpayer must have worked to have generated those $'s. Use avg income, taxes paid, and gov efficiency rate. $1m = x liftimes of avg individual contrib.
WageLife Hours (days/months/years/lifetimes)
We need to incorporate a new unit of measure into the government and social lexicon.
American Worker WageLife Hours (days, weeks, years, and lifetimes)
The people need to be shown the efficiency rate for every dollar collected as a tax. How much of that actually makes it into the hands of the actual designated beneficiary in a specific government tax or program after government overhead and expenses?
With this information, relate the nonsensical spending on programs into how many WageLife hours/days/weeks/years/lifetimes it would take for that money to be raised off the backs of the average American taxpayer.
In addition to describing the $50 million for condoms, it could be translated into an average America Taxpayer Wagelife of 300 lifetimes (or whatever it would be).
People just don't relate to numbers that are so far above any quantity that they have ever dealt with in their life. Help people relate. They need to hear a dollor amount of a particular program and easily relate that dollar amount to, say the entire amount of taxes paid during the lifetimes of all of their close friends and family and still coming up short...
Scale and perspective.
WageLife Hours/Days/Years/Lifetimes
Just imagine the impact of realizing that your entire lifetime of taxes paid is but a tiny fraction of the money sent off to a single DEI/Tranny pet project in a foreign country. Your entire life of toiling, scraping, saving, and sacrificing... The perspective that not one damn dime of that money actually made it into the hands of your fellow countrymen in need, or to the direct benefit of your future generations.
Quick overlay
Inspired by Buckhead. I was there for that, and pitched in a little.
A quick overlay of the two
I'm not afraid of *hard work
https://survivinginfidelity.com/ https://www.affairrecovery.com/
It sucks for everyone. There is a ton if information out there from loads of people with direct experience. All of our stories are unique and yet the same, in the macro/micro sort of way.
Look on the 1st link for "The 180". Basically, indifference to your spouse. Be careful "researching", it always triggers.
Hydrate (water)! Make sure your body is tired at the end of the day to help you get rest. Seek comfort, comfort food, sunrises, sunsets... Scale and perspective.
You can never change/fix the past. It sounds simple but so much of our remorse is based on "if only".
Good luck, take care of yourself. When the oxygen masks drop from the ceiling, put yours on first so you're in a position to help those around you.
Hmmm, not sure why the text of that post doesn't show. Here is the text.
[From Grok, after my prompts] Here is a simple, ready-to-use formula for your "Work Life Hours" metric, expressed directly in average taxpayer lifetimes:
Taxpayer Lifetimes = (D × 1.104) / 2,960,000
Where: D = dollars funded to the project 1.104 = overall multiplier for government overhead/efficiency (IRS collection cost ≈ 0.36% + typical agency/program administrative overhead ≈ 8–10%) 2,960,000 = dollars of tax revenue that one average U.S. taxpayer generates over a full 40-year working lifetime (based on current data)
Why this formula works. It first calculates the total taxes that must be collected to deliver D after overhead: D × 1.104 Then it divides by the lifetime tax contribution of one average taxpayer (≈ $2.96 million in gross earnings/tax base over 40 years at current average hourly wage of $37.38 and standard full-time hours).
You can copy-paste this into a spreadsheet, calculator, or code. Just plug in any funding amount for D. Examples... For $10,000,000 funded: Lifetimes = (10,000,000 × 1.104) / 2,960,000 ≈ 3.73 lifetimes For $50,000,000 funded: Lifetimes = (50,000,000 × 1.104) / 2,960,000 ≈ 18.65 lifetimes For $1,000,000,000 ($1 billion) funded: Lifetimes = (1,000,000,000 × 1.104) / 2,960,000 ≈ 373 lifetimes
Note: This is a conservative estimate using documented overhead rates. Real-world foreign-aid projects can have higher partner/contractor indirect costs (15–25% in some analyses), which would push the number higher; domestic projects often have lower overhead (1–8%). IRS
Minnisota Daycare fraud example: Using the formula for average U.S. taxpayer lifetimes: Taxpayer Lifetimes = (D × 1.104) / 2,960,000 where D = the dollars of documented fraudulent (or flawed/improper) funding paid out to the Minnesota daycare/child care project(s). Documented amount used (D)The most directly documented figure specific to Minnesota's daycare/child care assistance program (CCAP) in the ongoing fraud scandal is $231.4 million. This comes from a recent federal audit (late 2025) that found oversight deficiencies in attendance tracking, estimating that 11% of all payments had at least one error/flaw—potentially impacting $231.4 million in child care claims across more than 1,150 providers.
(Note: Actual proven fraud in the program has been much smaller in past investigations—only millions recovered/prosecuted—but this $231.4M represents the officially audited scale of problematic/flawed funding tied directly to the daycare fraud concerns. Broader allegations in the larger Minnesota social-services scandal reach $9B+, but those span multiple programs beyond daycare/child care specifically.) Calculation for $231.4 million in documented fraudulent/flawed daycare fundingTaxes that must be paid in (after overhead) = $231,400,000 × 1.104 = $255,465,600 Taxpayer Lifetimes = $255,465,600 ÷ 2,960,000 = ≈ 86.3 lifetimes
Result: The documented fraudulent Minnesota daycare funding requires approximately 86.3 average taxpayer lifetimes to fund.In plain terms: This single scandal element (the audited flawed child care payments) is equivalent to the full 40-year working careers of roughly 86 average U.S. taxpayers dedicated entirely to generating the tax revenue needed for that amount to reach (and then be lost to flaws/fraud in) the daycare program.You can plug any other figure from the scandal into the same formula if you have a different D in mind (e.g., a specific $4M fake daycare example or the broader $9B allegation). The formula stays linear and consistent with all prior examples.