Hi, Mediator,

He was definitely not professional. The real professionals, the ones who stay up-to-date with all important developments in their field, know what's been going on over the past twenty years. There is new, factual, scientific knowledge and new techniques based on that knowledge that may well help people in our position (I'm like you). There are millions of us still looking for the mother we didn't have, the person who will give us those magical gifts of self-love and confidence, or at the least give us a respite from all the blackness that covers our minds and lives.

The professionals do have new techniques to try out, if they keep up with what's been going on. Can they help us? Remains to be seen, I think. The best I've been able to come up with on my own is simply that helping other people in pain seems somehow to reduce my own pain. That's a band-aid on a cancer but it's the best I've been able to do. Take care.