I've recently started with a new Ts. She's following some kind of behavioural therapy and focuses on 'activating' me.

Things I'm trying to deal with now are

• I studied engineering. Not my choice, but my parents were over the moon with my degree. They also believe(d) I have no right to be unhappy because I have such a 'beautiful degree'. They probably only loved the engineer I didn't want to become and not the person they forced into a future he never wanted.
• I have difficulty accepting myself since the moment I gave in - it took 4 years to get me to my knees and make me comply to their whishes. It lead to a series of depressions, difficulty maintaining friendships (I can't believe somebody would voluntarily want to be near me) and even greater difficulty trying to establish or maintain a romantic relationship.
• I am currently divorcing.
• My ex wife gave me the opporunity to pursue another degree. I succeeded but with delay - which in part laid the foundations for our breakup - and only a 'cum laude" on my diploma. While I had very good grades in my bachelor, the fear of not performing well enough and eventually ending up in something similar to my old job made the pressure too high and I lost the - admittedly small - chance to try and get funding for a phd.
• The public services that are to 'guide' me towards work are pushing me back to engineering. Just as I expected (they actually told me in advance they would and no therapist I've been speaking to the last years wanted to believe this).
• I am too depressed to even think about what I would still want to do. Honestly, there is nothing that even seems worth doing
• I have no children. Given that I am 46 years old ... well, this is a particularly tough nut to crack.
• I'll probably never have a relationship again.
• I have no contact with my mother because of my choice to marry my (now ex) wife. You must know that my mother started yelling at me when I was seventeen at the moment I began my higher education and that she never stopped until I broke with her when I was 38. My father died just before I completed my education in engineering, but he always made it clear that he would never approve of me trying to find a job that was not engineering.
• I was bullied at school. I never really felt bothered by this but I am becoming more and more frustrated that my former bullies are alle succesful in life with wives, children, ...
• I used to love cooking, I have lost all interest in food and my relationship with food has evolved to merely trying to stuff myself with a minimal amount of calories because ... well, just because I don't fee like sitting down to eat. I don't believe I will ever enjoy a meal again.
• I've had a psychiatrist who, after two and a half years when I noticed studying became hard, came up with the idea that my parents were probably right in the choice they made for me. I have huge difficulty thrusting 'all these charlatans' again. I have the same feeling towards my current Ts.

I can't handle all this and I have become very passive. It has been an ordeal trying to fine a Ts and I had been without any treatment since the moment I completed my second degree (last January).

Her idea is that 'activating' me will make me feel good about myself. My perception at this moment - next to searching for a job, I am continuing tango classes (more because my dancing partner of years aks me to than for my own pleasure), I've started painting (the first year requires no creativity but mostly consists of technical excercies) and am learning to play the tabla (which I have been dreaming of for a few years) - is that I am merely squeezing the last bit of energy out of my limbs. I also notice that at the tiniest break (like when I am on the bicycle going from one thing to another or when I stop doing things because it is really time to go to bed), ruminations are back in full force. And they're getting worse. I'm angry all the time. I feel like punching people in the face, just because they look too happy. I can't help but thinking all this activating is just making matters worse.

Is this strategy really one that can work?