Does anything make you happy? If only we, and others, could accept that having a stone face is perfectly OK...we are not trying to hurt anyone.. that is just how we feel. I must say I do envy the reactions and friends chirpy, happy people get though... But I don't think I could fake a smile anymore. I put on a happy face at work for years when I was depressed and I hated it. I must clarify that for my situation, and this is not to discount your experience with your mother, my mother was very good to me in many ways. She never realized the affect her behavior had on me, plus she was like she was with everyone, so I didn't take it personally. Still, what we yearn for is perfectly normal and understandable. It doesn't help that I am a shy person. As for a solution...maybe the answer is within us? If no one can help us let's try to help ourselves. I am going to try too be more honest about who I am...egaaads...I hope you can get there too unhappy guy. Hugs to you dear one

I did have another insight in case that might help--our mothers were not what we had hoped them to be for some things. Would it help to think that maybe they did not have a nurturing experience with their mother themselves? In case we are blaming ourselves for being unworthy of love, and dooming ourselves to punish ourselves, maybe we can see it as that they never learned to give what we needed from them, that it isn't our fault? and it probably isn't even their fault. It just goes back and back. It is an old premise but it does ring true. Would this viewpoint help?