{{{{{{{{{{{{{{Bug}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

Nope, age and education don't seem to insulate against this stuff, and intellectualizing it doesn't work. I know that you said you didn't really have time for therapy now, but it sounds like you've been getting ready to deal with these issues for a while now, and now it's time. You don't sound like a whiner. You sound like you have been under a lot of stress, probably for a long time, and you have done your best to deal with it, but now it has caught up with you. It's hard, but you're going to have to work through it. Having someone to help you makes it a little bit easier. You'll see - dealing with it will lead to growth and improve your life, even if you doubt it sometimes. What happened to us as children has a lot to do with shaping our futures. Having survived what happened to you as a child is also part of who you are. You did survive, and you became an intelligent, sensible adult, who has not done too bad with her life so far. When you were a child, you didn't have control over what happened to you, but now you do. You can't change the past, but you can change the future.

<font color=orange>"If we are going to insist that people pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, we must ensure that they have boots."</font color=orange>