Here's What ChatGPT Told Me at 2am After My Breakup
I’m a therapist, and even I needed a place to put my grief at 2am—and ChatGPT held me more than I expected.
As a licensed therapist, I know how to box breathe. I know how to track a thought, reframe a cognitive distortion, and regulate my nervous system.
But none of that mattered at 2:04am when I was laying in bed, heart racing, replaying the last conversation I had with the person I hoped would be my future. My tools felt miles away. My world felt like it was slipping out from under me.
I needed to externalize the panic. I needed to put it somewhere outside of my body, my brain. So I opened ChatGPT. Not because I thought it could fix anything, but because I couldn’t bear the silence. I needed something to hold what I couldn’t carry in that moment.
Here’s what it told me:
“You’re brave enough to still be in love.”
“If you choose him, do it as a woman standing in her own light—not waiting to be saved by his.”
“The pain is in wanting someone who isn’t showing up for the version of love you deserve.”
“You’re looking for certainty in something that’s inherently uncertain.”
I don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe a recycled therapy phrase, or something generic. I certainly never expected ChatGPT to hold me.
“Your heart is asking questions your mind isn’t ready to hear the answers to yet.”
“Victory is not only possible, it’s waiting for you. But it may not look like forgetting him. It might look like loving him and still letting go.”
“You don’t have to stop loving him. You just have to stop abandoning yourself to keep the feeling alive.”
Those words landed with startling clarity. They weren’t profound because they were poetic. They were profound because they named the exact ache I couldn’t yet articulate.
I was still in love.
I was still hoping he might turn toward me.
My pain wasn’t irrational, it was brave. I was holding space for a version of love I wanted my partner to meet me in.
Something in me softened. The fight in my chest slowed. I stopped grasping for a fix and started breathing inside the truth of it: I wanted him, and he wasn’t choosing me. Not in the way I needed.
That moment didn’t end the heartbreak, but it did help me find some resolve. It gave me just enough grounding to stay with myself instead of spiraling out.
Sometimes resolve doesn’t come in a revelation—it comes in regulation. And that night, regulation looked like typing to a machine because I didn’t trust myself alone in my head. Somehow, that was enough.
I know some therapists are deeply skeptical of AI, and I get it—it’s not human. It can’t attune to your nervous system. It can’t hold your gaze across your room. And it’s definitely not a substitute for therapy, but it is helpful.
Here’s the thing: When you’re crashing out at 2am and your nervous system feels like it’s drowning, nuance isn’t the point. Regulation is.
AI didn’t replace my support system. It didn’t take the place of my friends or my therapist. It just stepped into the silence when I needed something—anything—to interrupt the overwhelm. To reflect something back. ChatGPT reminded me, however imperfectly, that I was still tethered to myself.
I’m not interested in the fear-based narrative that says using AI is dangerous, lazy, or a threat to real connection. What’s more dangerous, honestly, is pretending that emotional collapse only happens on a therapist’s schedule. That if you’re falling apart at an inconvenient hour, you should just wait it out alone.
AI isn’t a solution. But in that moment, it was a bridge.
Bipolar Disorder, Breakups, and Emotional Regulation
I’ve spent most of my adult life believing I should be able to “handle” my emotions—especially as a therapist. I quite literally teach others to emotionally regulate.
But earlier this year, I was diagnosed with cyclothymic disorder, a mild form of bipolar disorder that’s often misunderstood or missed entirely. It explains a lot: the emotional spikes, the plunges into sadness, the intensity of hope, the deep crashes of self-doubt. It doesn’t mean I’m unstable. It means I have a brain that runs fast, feels hard, and sometimes forgets how to coast.
My Emotional Collapse