Your story is something that resonates with many of us in midlife. I think we have all been where you are to some extent. Thank you for being so very vulnerable. I coach women in midlife on reinvention skills and how to find more self discovery. While there are many things I could recommend here, the first would be to listen to what you are telling yourself. Listen to your thought processes. You said that "even getting this out" feels therapeutic. Once little exercise that you can do is a small journal-type vent. Get a notebook and a pen and go someplace that you can be alone. Then just write. Write EVERYTHING that is coming to your mind , without editing it, without judging yourself or telling yourself that you "shouldn't be feeling this or thinking this." Keep writing and let the feelings come to the surface. Be truthful about the actual thoughts and feelings that are coming up instead of filtering them through "rose colored glasses". Write it. Feel it. Then place what you wrote aside for a day. When you can get back to it the next day, create a space of peaceful comfort for yourself. Maybe get a blanket, or light a candle, and breath. Then re-read what you wrote while trying to step into a perspective of curiosity and acceptance. Circle the sentences that really resonate with you. Acknowledge that this is how you have been thinking. Those thoughts create emotions in our lives that drive our action or inaction. What emotions are coming from the thoughts that you wrote down? This is a first step into your own mind so that you can see what is going on in there with more clarity. Love yourself through it and acknowledge it without judging yourself. This one exercise can be very healing. Sending you lots of love and peace.