Headcrap

Headcrap, all that stuff that creeps into your head when you're feeling like shit.  Paranoia, self esteem issues, lack of confidence, worrying that you're not good enough, or not likeable, or you've done something wrong, even though you don't actually know what it could possibly be.

I'm unbearably oversensitive to headcrap.  I know it's to do with depression and all kinds of crap from the past, but I just can't get past it.  I'm pretty sure I'm a good person, I certainly don't intend to do anything wrong, but I frequently get this horrible feeling.  Like I'm not really wanted, like I'm not liked, like people make an effort for a short time because they are nice, but they tire of it because I'm crap.  Like I must have said or done something to make people not like me any more, even though I have no idea what I've done, or why I feel like they don't like me.  Like I'm just fat and ugly and stupid, and I'm just tolerated.

I know where it comes from, no doubts about it.  It's from the incessant bullying I suffered at school and at home, it's the times I was taken the piss out of, the times, the times I was patronised, and the times I was ignored, excluded and laughed at.  It's the abuse I suffered at home.  I was an uncool kid, didn't have good clothes or all the stuff kids see as cool.  I was shy and cried easily, so I was an easy target.  I was told not to tell tales, not to grass, not to say anything, so I never got helped when I needed it the most.  Then I had a major set back 8 years ago when I found out my ex was having an affair and was going to leave me.  I know it's easy to blame shit in the past, and that I should just get the fuck over it, but it's not that easy when it's ingrained into your head, ready to pounce on you when you're feeling a bit sensitive or tired or ill.

I have got over a lot of what happened in most ways, and I certainly haven't gone down the route of others I've known, who have succumbed to alcoholism and allowing the past to affect their behaviour in the present, in fact I've been quite determined, especially where my own kids are concerned, that they never have to deal with what I have.  But GAH!  Why won't the paranoia go away?  Why can't I believe the lovely people who have done so much to boost my confidence, to show me that I am a valued friend and a good person?  I feel guilty because I feel like it's an insult to them when they have been so good to me.  But I sit here and the thoughts go round my head over and over again until I am certain that I am secretly hated, or at least there's just something about me that stops people liking me.

It gets all very me me me and starts sounding a bit arrogant or passive aggressive, I don't know how to handle putting things right.  I know it's not all about me and that I'm nobody's priority but my own, so I don't know what to do when I get like this.  Do I risk sounding like a twat and asking wtf I've done wrong, resulting in people feeling guilty when it's been a simple oversight or something, or a passive aggressive idiot trying to get the sympathy vote, or do I force myself in where I'm not wanted and piss everyone off?

Fucked if I know.