Intimacy starvation in LDR

I (25F) am in a long-distance relationship with my girlfriend (25F), and the lack of physical intimacy is starting to really affect me.

We’ve been long-distance for about 13 months now. Before that, we lived in the same city for two years and we were extremely physically affectionate and sexual with each other. Going from that to barely any physical contact has been… honestly brutal.

We still do video/phone intimacy, photos, all that. But lately it’s getting harder to keep things feeling exciting or satisfying. And the general absence of touch, closeness, cuddles, warmth is just crushing me.

What makes it harder is that my girlfriend doesn’t seem to struggle with it at the same level. she says that because of the distance she can “switch off” that part of herself. I wish I could do that. Calling or video chatting sometimes makes it even worse.

I’ve been trying to channel the frustration into working out. It got to the point where it's almost over-exercising just to stay busy. It helped a lot at first, but now it’s like my brain is adapting and it’s not giving me the same relief. Some days I feel like I’m on the edge of tears or anger for no reason. Other days I just kind of shut down and feeling empty. It’s affecting my mood, my focus, and my work. I would never cheat, ever. But sometimes I catch myself thinking that being in a relationship but never being touched feels worse than being single and touch-starved because when you’re single, at least the possibility of spontaneous closeness exists. I find myself craving a hug very often.

I just needed to vent somewhere. :/