Sorry for taking so long to reply. If I remember correctly, I felt a lot better after reading your comment, but didn't get time to respond right then, and shortly afterward shifted into avoiding stress by not thinking about the problem for a while.

I can't do a lot of this now because the friends I'm mostly thinking of live too far away from me, but I'll remember it, since chances are I'll be able to use it someday. Finding more things to talk about that aren't intellectually difficult is something I could do now, though, so I'll work on that.