Emo player here:

Yeah life after death sucks hard. I bought it thinking you could stay alive as long as you had tears and I bought it and tear boosters, which made that whole level hard and expensive.

Also, when going with this ego over tears strategy, see if you can’t wait a level while buying a new attack ability, so you have the tears to support it. Of course, you usually want to buy the first emo attack, as the re-re one suck bum.