I'm a 20 year old college student struggling with my self-esteem.

Long story short, I came into college with a lot of confidence. I was totally ready for my intended major and I believed in myself fully. Unfortunately I had not developed a lot of crucial life skills that most of my peers had in high school. I did not know how to study successfully, how to be organized, how to do well in college classes, how to manage my time well, how to watch what I spend, how to budget properly, how to take care of myself, and a lot of other things that everyone else seemed to already know how to do.

So fast forward two years. I almost failed out of college after three semesters. I had made a lot of money through work and yet I had very little money left to my name. I had to change majors because of my academic failures. And so on and so forth.

My confidence was completely shattered. I have taken good steps over the last half year to right the ship and life is getting better. But every day I struggle with a regret and sense of helplessness that kills any self-esteem or hope I have for a good future. Everyone I know has their life together, from finances to a steady job to academics to internships to everything. Everyone is moving forward and I've been spinning my tires in the mud the last two years because I lacked the necessary skills to succeed. It's very tough, having to hear good news from people about their lives when I have nothing to report because I'm still picking up the pieces. I'm just starting to get a hold on life and everyone else is twenty steps ahead of me.

Granted, things have been going better. I'm going to graduate on time, I have a job and I have learned and applied some valuable lessons from these last two years. But whenever I make a mistake or something goes slightly wrong to set me back, I get consumed by feelings of inadequacy, helplessness and sadness. I just kind of shut down and hate myself, feel lonely and out of place in the world for awhile. Sometimes it takes a couple of minutes or hours to shake the feeling, sometimes a week. But while I'm feeling it I just feel so lost and sad and feel like giving up the fight.

I'm not suicidal, and I think that's because I can see the larger picture of where my life is headed. But I worry that one of these days a lot of things are going to go wrong at the same time and I'll be thrown into a deeper depression that I won't be able to get out of as easily, y'know? I just wish I knew how to stop these overwhelming feelings of inadequacy whenever I face adversity or setbacks. The slightest feeling of disappointment can trigger it and I wish I knew how to keep that from happening.

I apologize for the length of this post. The backstory for all of the reasons why I feel this way is pretty complicated and I tried to condense it as much as possible without being annoying.