Hold,

You nailed your depression really well...disowning yourself. Gotta hurt...cause a lot of anger at the injustice you do to yourself...and self is gonna hurt until it's numb of hurting.

You know this.

Would you act for your own benefit if forced to?

Someone did this for me...radical honesty...when a relative turned to my DH and said, "Are you going to divorce her? Aren't you miserable with her depression?" Then she turned to me and said, "Snap out of it."

I did...I used the fake it til ya make it way of acting and having new feelings follow....because what followed her asking my DH if he were going to divorce me due to misery...really shocked me.

You might get your wish fulfillment...that horrible false payoff you're gunning for...where Mrs Hold decides to divorce you, accept a much lower lifestyle, because your misery cuts her to the bone...which would make you right, wouldn't it?

In a way, don't you hate her loving you, instead of hating you like you hate yourself? She can't even do that for you, can she? You may long for feeling very loved and very comfortable being despised...which is why it's a choice.

Your loving feelings follow your own loving actions. You went to the reunion and validated you weren't nuts...and you matched your self-image with other images and came home to the one woman in the world who knows you all over...all your parts...and she embraced you, listened to you "share" (not debrief) and made love to the real you...

No wonder you don't feel anything...you didn't act and have the feelings follow. You expected them from the outside, again, and they didn't come in.

What if now, Hold, you can look again at all that rejection you saw as coming in from the outside...and see it wasn't...might make you mistaken...and end up being loved, anyway.

Because you are, have been and will be. Get out of your own way. Ask Mrs Hold to HELP you...tell her you've self-injured too long to do it for you...ask her to get you to where you need to be...to take charge, because you're sick of depression...

LA