My images are inside the app package, but missing when I launch Photos

Just opened via double-clicking the library, rather than just opening the app.

I found there are 57,876 of photos in the "Recently Deleted" section, so I'm "recovering" them now.

Result is, everything seems to be restored. Very baffling how they all got into the Recently Deleted. I never delete anything. AND before the "repair" suggested by Old Toad, there was nothing in Recently Deleted, either. So, whatever, I have my photos back where they should be.

Now to find a more robust, stable, usable photo cataloging app, as I really do hate Photos. I so miss Aperture, and I refuse to pay Adobe's hug subscription scam for Lightroom. Anyone found a Mac photo cataloging app they like? I do all my touchups in Pixelmator Pro, so I don't care about photo retouching tools, just cataloging my photos.

Well, that took a long time to run, and still none of my photos show up. Ugh... I hate Apple Photos... Will I need to go back and catalog the last 20 years of photos all over again from scratch? I don't remember all the dates and stuff. This is a nightmare.

These images are inside the Library (right-click, Show Package Contents).

No, never use any of those rip-off cleaner things.

Yes, meant library, not app, package.

Only one library, so no, that's not it.

I do nightly backups of several Macs via Carbon Copy Cloner, no Time Machine, I've several technical reasons for that I won't bother going in to.