She said she is faking every single human interaction she has.
I have never seen a more tortured soul.
Wow, that is quite amazing that she has come to this conclusion. What a sad life to lead. Is your wife spiritual? Does she ever look for ways to serve others? I have not read your whole sitch so I may be way off in what I'm suggesting but maybe she is needing to find a meaningful way to connect with others?? A great way to do this is to find ways to help or serve others. It forces you to forget yourself and your problems and to focus on what you can do to make someone else feel better. This may not be something that you can tell her to do but you could possibly encourage a situation that would lead her to do this. IDK. Sometimes our best life lessons are learned when we look outside ourselves.
Thank JKS...she has always been a deeply spiritual person, very driven by the heart and soul almost to the exclusion of some of the day to day stuff people live with. That she is like this only makes this crisis of hers harder. She's one of those people who feels everything exquisitely, so in this sitch her pain is magnified to extreme levels. Hence, her desire to disappear. She's in constant pain and guilt. And then her fear causes her to close up instead of reach out. She is veyr afraid of any spiritual suggestions that have any taste of organized religion, however I can see her searching in her way through the books I see her reading. She is extremely opposed to any sort of self help scenarion. Again, her fears drive her away from anything where she, in her sitch, feels she is being told what to do. Thats just how she sees things right now. So things like 5 LL, Retrouville, MC is completely poisonous to her. She has been with a psychiatrist for a year now so she's not doing this all alone.
As for her being able to give to others. In fact, her history is of giving and that is also a reason she's done such a 180. Her being a stay at home Mom for years and then her career in the alzheimer's world has all been about giving. So her dilemma has been that she gave and gave on the surface but never knew what she was herself. She's basically trying to unwire a lifetime of mental conflict, and then seeing if she can rewire herself back up somehow.
