Wow, reading this I felt like you were describing me in so much of that.

The vast majority of the thoughts you’ve had about yourself are thoughts I have had about myself. A lot of those things I never addressed on anything more than a superficial level until my last relationship ended this past October and then I really began an honest self analysis. I posted about it on here at the time and I immersed myself with all the positive things I could do – all the the things I thought I should be doing to help myself to a better place – but when I began seeing a counselor (at the suggestion of one of my professors) I really started to see how much I had been putting things aside or rationalizing behaviors that had been steadily dragging me down. In the sessions I would make comments about myself or put myself down unwittingly and he would stop me and I wouldn’t even realize what I had just said until he had me think about it. Most of the things on your list would be on my list as well. I’m an obsessive worrier, I think I’m much more of a kid than I should be at this age, and I constantly worry about what people think of me. I have always been self-deprecating and I have always gravitated towards seeing the things about myself I don’t like instead of what I do like but the thought “I don’t think who I am is someone anyone I like would want to be with” is spot on as a thought I’ve had more than a few times in these past five months. It almost made me laugh reading your description of treating relationships as board games, I can remember doing this and ultimately being exhausted by it, it’s such a waste of energy trying to hit all these right steps instead of just being comfortable with someone and confident in your true self being good enough. It really sucks having this nagging in the back of your mind when you meet someone you like that you aren’t good enough for this person unless you hide all of your flaws. One of the biggest root causes of frustration for me – that even now still bothers me as much as I hate to admit it – is what my ex and her family think of me. I know I shouldn’t care, she’s no longer in my life and we live over 2 hours away from each other so it’s not like we will run into each other, but it irks me to no end to think they would think of me in a negative way or not approve of me for just being myself (I am more of an introvert she and her family are much more extroverts). I really aspire to be the type of person who can say they don’t care what anyone else thinks about them and mean it to their core.

Anyway, I hope that finding a counselor works for you – I try to make it a habit not to give direct advice because everyone responds to things differently but to instead offer what is/has worked for me. Mindfulness mediation has helped greatly with keeping me in the moment and not obsessing over things I can’t help. I’ve always been incredibly strict about paying bills and CC payments on time and now having to put myself into debt while going back to school has been a nightmare for me but meditation has really helped me to put the worry aside – if only for 10 minutes – I can escape that fear. I also changed my diet to a focus on much more nutritionally rich foods which ended up raising my overall base mood. Along with this I started a fitness and weightlifting routine fit around my classes. I know these are pretty common suggestions and it feels cliche to be suggesting something you’ve probably been told a hundred times but for me they’ve sort of begun to benefit one another and unintended benefits of one have been increasing the effectiveness of another.

Best of luck to you