My childhood and teen years were pretty unpleasant. My father was an alcoholic, my mother would easily get angry at me and beat me and shout at me, the most common place for beatings was the dinner table, because my mom and dad would get angry at me eating slowly. None of the relatives intervened and I was later blamed for my sulky nature, anger outbursts, standing up to my dad and causing a scandal. I was being told I'm nothing and won't achieve anything in life, won't be loved by anyone. I was miserable and depressed but also angry at them and this anger drove me forward, made me confront me feelings of depression (not in a kind way, I would sometime slap myself out of feeling down). I've dealt with eating disorder, panic attacks, hypochondria that was masking anxiety and depression, I have been to therapy, read a lot, spoken to friends with similar experiences. And every time I get a better sense of the roots of my current low self-esteem, anxiety, and recurrent depression. But I am nevertheless, now and then, reduced to a complete mess, thrown into a dark and cold place, paralysed by my feeling of no self worth, ashamed at having thought I have skills and knowledge, convinced that everybody sees right through me the worthless pretentious bore that I am. And although I somehow manage to slowly confront there feelings, with help or without, the very fact that they come back, and seem more scary and more dangerous, makes me feel discouraged. I feel like I have less trust in myself and less confidence in my abilities than I used to have in the midst of my miserable childhood and teens. And I worry that the recurrent wreckage that I experience make me a less able person - both professionally and personally. I worry that nobody will ever love me or value me for knowledge and skills, because every now and then I am reduced to a numb, silent, scared, hurting mess of self-loathing. I've never even had a lasting relationship and I'm in my mid-30s. And, although I know I'm not the only one in this position, I feel anxious that I've not been able to form an intimate relationship. And I've never held a long-term job that leads to a career prospect, mostly because I've always wanted to work in academic research, which is why I'm doing a PhD now, but I have all these fears that I'm too old, too crippled by my emotions to be able to have this type of career. Ok, I kind of went off-road.
The bottom line is, I want to know if other people experience the feeling that instead of getting better, the aftermath of childhood keeps haunting them in ever-changing forms and somehow gets worse because it makes them feel like being stuck with the same feeling of worthlessness no matter how much they try and achieve things in their life. And what advice can you give?