The warmest of welcomes to you as you continue to face such an overwhelming challenge on so many levels.
I'm wondering whether your mum was ever led to identify why she was never able to feel a sense of love. While low levels of oxytocin within depression are challenging but not unusual, I think there can be a variety of reasons as to why we can't feel love or much energy in motion (emotion) at all. While the unromantic version of who we are is 'a big fleshy bag of chemical reactions and stuff', there is so much more to us than that. I've found 'Who am I and how do I suffer or thrive on some mental and natural level?' can be something worth questioning. In other words 'Besides physical function, how do I think and how do I feel?'. More precisely, 'What am I actually feeling?'.
For some, the answer could be 'I'm feeling what pure exhaustion feels like'. For others is could be 'I'm feeling myself having never recovered from post natal depression, even after all these years' or 'I'm feeling the lack of support and raising it takes in order to lead me to feel any energy or form of inspiration'. For some, it could be 'I'm feeling the depressing, anxiety inducing or soul destroying side effects of a physical condition (such as thyroid issues, vitamin and/or mineral deficiencies, sleep apnea etc). Knowing what it is we're actually feeling the effects of can lead to 'No wonder I'm suffering so much or finding life such a struggle. It makes complete sense'. Until we're led to make greater sense of things, the question can often be 'What's wrong with me?', as opposed to 'What am I feeling?'.
