oh an emotional overload sounds like fun  

A big part of that moment, in line with other sentiments mentioned in this thread, was being reminded of my first months in ex-ing.  Lp had just made a post that affected me more than just about any other.  Something about a fungus silently killing the roots of all the trees in the forest (you had to be there... ). 

Anyway, I was a suit who commuted to Grand Central/Times Square at the time.  You know, the commuter coat uniform and all that.  So there I was that day, a premie for thirty-four years with my "reality" collapsing like a house of cards, scrunched into a Metro North train seat with a New York Times covering my face.  Tears falling as I secretly read that post line by line over and over again.

I so deeply respect the courage and condition of those beautiful people who endured the anguish and confusion of having everything they based their lives turn out to be false, leaving them to reboot themselves without an operating system and having to scrape to rebuild themselves.

Fear of going through that is why lifers are lifers... so unknowingly confused they rationalize everything along with all the irreconcilable contradictions as... love.