Where does it come from? How can I get it? CAN I even get it? I am not the person I want to be. The person I want to be is confident, decides she wants to do something then DOES it, isn't afraid to speak her mind or take a chance, doesn't care what other people think and isn't constantly paralysed by fear and self-loathing...

I'm trying to replace the negative tapes with more positive ones. I'm trying to go easy on myself. I'm trying to get on despite my fear. But at the end of the day, more often than not, I still have zero confidence in my abilities, zero respect for myself, zero hope that I'm ever going to be the person I want to be. Nothing's helping, not getting involved, not meeting new people, not expanding my interests or trying to stay positive. I know some supremely confident people and I have to say that I'm incredibly jealous. I don't know how they do it. It's not that they never mess up or make mistakes, it's just that they don't seem to care if they do. Logically I know that everyone makes mistakes, that most of my errors probably go unnoticed by the general population and that nobody is harder on me than myself. But I'm so easily overwhelmed by embarrassment. I'm constantly asking myself what others will think, what they're thinking of me now ... I'm uncomfortable more often than not and I hate that. I don't think I was always this way, at least I used to be a lot more confident. I used to be able to stand on a stage and sing and dance and act. I could speak my mind just about anywhere and I wasn't ashamed of it if my ideas differed from everyone else's. I had a wide circle of friends and I was convinced that I could do anything I set my mind to. Now that's all gone and I can't figure out why. I can't figure out why I CARE so much what other people think. I didn't used to. I wish I could go back to the way I was before I got so screwed up.