It sounds really, really tough and I am so sorry you are having such a hard time. And I am also impressed with your insight and your searching.

That half-dead feeling. Might it be simply "numb", so you don't feel, because you are afraid of what you would feel?

Getting to the hidden is hard. When my therapist asked me, steered me toward possible anger issues, I admitted I am a bit angry at my mom - a lukewarm admittance, who isn't? We talked about how none of our moms are ideal, blah-blah-blah. I did not believe I was hiding anything from her or from myself.

But it was not till now, years later that I had a peek at the frightening rage that was hiding in me. Rage and an awful left-loathing, much, much deeper than a mere dissatisfaction with my weight or whatever else. It's done something, this looking at it. It seems done, gone. Instead I am feeling much more positive. Happy even. I still haven't gotten my act together, and my emotions are skittyish and unruly, but what a difference!

I've got my hands on psychology book by Arno Gruen "The insanity of normality. realism as sickness: toward understanding human destructiveness". I bumped into a reference on internet somewhere and the title stirred something. So, I read about the betrayal of self. It is basically about our domestication process, how as children we are told "you can't be loved as you are" and we believe it (later we may hear that we are ok as we are, but by then it sounds like a such a hypocritical lie). We try to become how we think they want us to be (and we hate it!) so they would love us (and they don't!). This is the betrayal of self and it leaves us with an awful taste of self-loathing. It is insanity. Our process of conforming to the "normal" is brutal, and no wonder so many of us lose it, our minds fracture.

Getting in touch with that fierce rage I've been hiding since childhood did something. It wasn't even being able to forgive myself, or my parents, or the God, or the world - it was like there was no need anymore to forgive.

I am telling you this, because though our stories are different, and our problems are different, I want to help you, and that's all I could think of, even though I can't think how it would help.

I wish you, I pray that one day you will find out that all you owe yourself is but a gentle tender love.