There’s No Shortcut Through Grief. Not Even With AI.
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(A case study by a gay, jacked, emotionally regulated PhD candidate who still spiraled anyway.)
I used everything I had.
AI. Neuroscience. Emotional regulation. Strategy.
This wasn’t my first time building a system to save myself.
I’ve used AI and neuroscience to navigate everything from addiction to emotional chaos.
Every time I spiral, I document it.
Code around it.
Reverse-engineer the logic.
It always worked.
It gave me answers.
It helped me survive.
So when I felt something tender this time—something real—I thought:
I’ve got this. I know what to do.
I built the system again.
Tuned it to track my triggers, stabilize my impulses, delay my panic.
And for a while?
It worked.
I didn’t spiral.
I didn’t chase.
I didn’t relapse.
The system held.
And I still ended up heartbroken.
🥲
There was no breakup.
No betrayal.
Just someone who slowly stopped moving toward me—
while still being polite and handsome.
Very rude, honestly.
It wasn’t even a real loss.
Which made it harder to grieve.
I couldn’t point to what ended.
I could only feel what stopped.
You know.
🧠 Limbic ambiguity with a side of emotional gaslighting… from the universe.
So I turned to the system.
Asked it to explain the ache.
It said:
-
Intermittent reward
-
Oxytocin withdrawal
-
Executive override fatigue
-
Loss of perceived co-regulation
🧠 Which means: my brain got dumped without a conversation.
And I still tried to regulate through it like a responsible gay adult with a working prefrontal cortex.
I stayed grounded.
Didn’t send the texts.
Didn’t beg for clarity.
Didn’t perform longing via cryptic Instagram stories.
I just… moved.
Because staying in bed crying felt like the kind of sadness that doesn’t end.
And I genuinely wanted to go out.
To move.
To see my friends.
To feel like I still existed in a room.
So I got ready.
While crying, I typed everything into AI.
Mid-sob.
Not cute, but efficient.
And AI—my emotionally regulated mirror self—offered:
“Let’s name this chat: 🛣 This Is a Reroute.”
I said yes.
I didn’t even question it.
Because if I could call it something, maybe it would hurt less.
I called an Uber.
Still crying.
Still trying to pull myself back into my body.
Halfway through the ride, I looked at the map.
I had typed in the wrong address.
I was literally going in the wrong direction.
The irony?
Criminal.
I had just renamed the spiral “This Is a Reroute.”
And now I was being spiritually bullied by Google Maps.
🗺️💀
Because I wasn’t just grieving him.
I was grieving the version of me that existed when I still felt chosen.
The one that was regulated.
Confident.
Clear-headed.
Proud.
The version that didn’t need to chase anyone to feel lovable.
The one that felt like maybe—finally—
“I’m okay.”
And when the warmth stopped,
that version of me started disappearing too.
The system didn’t break.
It did its job.
But even with everything optimized—
even with brilliant prompts, perfect insight, and restraint—
I still ended up alone in my room
Googling “can you grieve someone who was never yours”
while chewing electrolyte gummies
like they were going to save me from emotional collapse.
There is no shortcut through grief.
Not even with AI.
Not even when your dopamine is graphed and your executive function is doing its best.
Not even when your abs are popping and your trauma is catalogued.
Some pain isn’t meant to be solved.
It’s meant to be felt.
🧃
And no system—no matter how well-coded—can feel it for you.
Only time can.
AI said my anterior cingulate cortex is still activated—meaning my brain is processing unresolved attachment.
But honestly? I just miss him.
And I miss the version of me who had his hands in his jacket pockets, riding home on the back of his motorcycle, thinking—just for a second—that this could become something.