Not sure why this happens.

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Hi everyone, I am going to try to keep this brief as many of you have already read my posts in the past about my job and family. First off, I received the good news the other day that I will be a new mentor to the student I have previously spoken of in my earlier posts. However, I'm still having some problems.
Every few days or so I have an episode either at night or first thing in the morning where I cry severely. Sometimes I'll have a bad dream about my new mentee and his classmates or myself. As a result, I wake up early in the morning sobbing in bed and shaking, usually cold as well. When it happens at night, I will just cry and cry while reaching for tissues. Last night for example, I was looking at the kids schedule's because I wanted to see who was in my mentee's middle school class and who his teachers were. This inadvertently made me abruptly very sad and triggered another crying episode. I was laying down in bed holding my doll for comfort but I had to get up a couple times because I was crying so hard I started choking and needed tissues. What made me sad last night was when I began to think about how all of these kids were in my care at one time or another and now they're gone. I never got to say a proper goodbye to any of them at the end of the year. Our only goodbye was through a google meet during the shutdown.
As for my mentee, while I am super excited to still get to see him this year it's still virtual which means no hugs or high fives and no sneaking him little treats like the donuts he really likes. There's also a lot of strict rules with mentoring. For starters I can only see him for 1 hour per week. I'm not allowed to see him outside of school for social visits such as buying him an ice cream or meeting him at the library, even with his mom's consent and supervision. The only time I can see him outside of the hour is during a school sponsored event such as a soccer game and even then I need permission to attend from like 3 people. I know he's going to have a tough time this year because they've got him in a class with 3 gen ed teachers for his main subjects as well as 3 encore teachers, and the schedule rotates. This is going to be way too much for him I can already see it. I want to volunteer to help him out as much as possible but how much can we really get done in just 1 hour? Sometimes, I also think about how lonely and empty the school will feel on Tuesday without him there. It just won't be the same.
All of this has me feeling extremely sad and stressed, just not every single day in the same way. Like today for instance, I woke up and I didn't really feel much better, I just wasn't crying anymore and could hide my sadness quite well. I don't know why this is happening to me but I know that most of the time lately, I feel genuine sadness and I feel like I have an aching hole in my heart. I still haven't been able to quit my addiction because of all this, it's just a lot for me to handle. I try not to worry my family with this because they have enough on their minds. I do tell my friend but she's got her life to worry about as well.
A few other minor inconveniences happened yesterday. Nothing major, just some annoyances. I sometimes get a very slight headache from all the stress and I've been frequently getting belly cramps just before bedtime. Also, yesterday I found myself becoming very cranky with people. I often think about what I'm going to do when my parents die someday. They live with me and have been with me my whole life. These thoughts also make me sad and cause me to sometimes feel suicidal. Of course, I will never actually commit suicide because I'm much too afraid of death and nobody will assist me. Plus, in one of the dreams I had I did kill myself and it was too sad so I again woke up sobbing. However, there are times I do think that if I died and went to heaven, there would be no more pain in my life. I could just be happy for eternity. My friend has a lot of generic advice for me on this. She keeps saying "quit drinking that stuff!" "Just don't listen to bad thoughts and stop feeling attached to the kids." It's obviously not as easy as she says because if it were, do you think I'd still be drinking and waking up sobbing with chills and sometimes a headache? I apologize for venting but I just need a safe space to discuss my feelings about this.

You have to start liking other kids.

They need you, too.

I think it's also good if you have other adults in your life who you feel close to...friends etc.

Yeah I had some other kids I liked a lot. That's the problem, they all basically left at once and now they're gone. I'm trying my best to make friends but the difficult thing is, they're going to be married soon if not already. Then what? Everyone else is moving up in life and I feel so behind. I want to support my mente for e and will do whatever I can but it won't start for a couple of weeks and by then he'll be way behind his other peers and I was just told not to join any of his classes so it's just going to be hard to help him and get him his services if there's so little I can do.

This might not be right for you but...

Some things that helped me were (1) joining a low-pressure, as-much-as-you-want or as-little-as-you-want social organization; (2) participating in small, recurring adult events for things that interested me and did not require extensive socializing.

I suppose volunteering might also work, for instance, an event where people pickup trash in a local park. I admit I have not done too much volunteering, though.

I am very strongly introverted so I would tend to stay off to the side, but seeing some of the same people every month or so over a number of years felt good.

Thanks for the suggestions. I definitely need to find things that are positive to get a positive mindset going. Sitting around thinking negative thoughts all day is no good. I just wanna feel genuinely happy again like I used to feel.

Maybe you already do some of this...but I've always found it makes me feel happier to take walks, usually while listening to music...just enjoy the fresh air outside or whatever, let my mind wander, think about my day and my future...I guess it depends where you're living. There are a lot of basic "self-care" kinds of things I learned while in therapy, hospital, rehab, working, whatever. You can make a list of activities, foods, items, etc., that you associate with when you're well, and use them when you find yourself starting to break down...

Yeah, I'm currently working on my website for my game company. I only work on it for 1-2 hours a day normally but it's nice because even 1-2 hours a day of peace without bad thoughts and heartache is refreshing. Tomorrow I go back to school with all of the kids there. I think it's going to be a sh*t show excuse my language but I'm not sure. We'll just have to find out.