Hello gloomectomy: I'm sorry you have encountered such difficulty. I celebrate your determination not to self-destruct! From my perspective, I believe you can feel very proud of what you did for your mother!

I would just like to share a couple of thoughts with you. You mentioned swallowing, squishing, ignoring, running away from & starving out your emotions. I have a lot of difficult emotions as well... different from yours... but difficult none-the-less... (I've been involuntarily committed to 2 psych wards in the past following serious suicide attempts.)

It has been my experience that trying to push down or ignore these emotions just keeps them coming back stronger & more often. As an alternative, what I have learned to do is to allow these emotions to come up, to attend to them, lean into them, breathe with them, & accept them... with compassion. Sometimes I will even smile to them & place my hand over my heart as a sign of my compassion for them. As a result of this practice I have learned, first, that I can live with these difficult emotions. They have no power over me other than what I cede them. And second I have learned that by allowing these difficult emotions to arise, over time, they lessen.

My other thought is simply that it is so difficult to continuously be strong for others & not have some outlet for what one is feeling inside. I know this because this is what I do. And, as I mentioned above, it has resulted in my having made 2 serious attempts to eliminate myself. So I wonder if there is any possibility of you finding some sort of outlet for what you are feeling... a support group or some income-based mental health services for persons who are low income, for students, etc. Perhaps where you live, these sorts of things aren't available. But if you could find something, my thought would be that it would be well worth whatever effort you need to expend to get it.

I send good wishes your way with the hope that, in some way, you will be able to find peace in your life.