The worst part about the really dark times wasn't even the pain itself, but the feeling that I was somehow permanently broken, like a toy that could never work right again. The real cruelty was picturing the future that way, every good thing tainted by the expectation of failure. I spent so long bracing for the next disaster that I almost MADE it happen, just to be right. I remember the 'before and after' feeling, like the person who went INTO it simply ceased to exist. And the terrifying question of whether I could ever really build anything NEW on that cracked foundation.