Rapunzel:

Thanks for such a detailed description of your "thing to change." In short, you feel an overwhelming amount of self-criticism and you believe you are helpless. What is most amazing is that you seemed to give a great explanation of the cause of your problem:

my parents wanted to keep me as a dependent child forever Brilliant! The unconscious part is how your parents' teachings about being helpless became so powerful and unchallenged by you even though you are no longer a child (how old are you?).

So, I'd say your self-help project is to disprove (in behavior, feelings, and thoughts) all this destructive negative crap you were taught by your family (remember they were almost certainly trying to be good parents to help and keep you protected).

A good therapist would ask you to test out the validity of many of your negative ideas, e.g. is it true that you can't change (each day prove you can change what you eat in some way (keep records), reduce the self-hatred thoughts today, count how often you can pleasantly interact with other people, and on and on.

Try thought stopping (in Ch. 11) when am "helpless or awful" thought/feeling comes into your mind. Find out there are other ways to be cared about instead of being weak and in need of help. Test out over and over day by day if people only love you when you a helpless little girl. You may, indeed, need to much help (that is not a putdown; it is encouragement.

There are thousands of ways to prove you are likeable and competent so you don't feel so self-critical, so you will be happier. Try testing some of your negative ideas and put some of your positive traits to work...and then give us feedback about how you did. Many people coming here have had experience learning to feel better about themselves (and still being honest).

Over-protective parents are teaching "you-are-not-OK" and you need help because you can't take care of yourselves. They are unaware of what they are teaching the child.

I hope we hear back from you (my Chapter 14 is about the stuff I'm talking about in this post).

drclay