Some background. I’m 32 and have been suffering from anxiety, depression, and addiction since I was 12. I grew up in a very high strung high stress family. My father and brother were extremely intense in terms of seriousness and intellect.

Amongst our family friends it is just considered a matter of fact that my father is a stress case. His pessimism and negativity concerning every aspect of life has been unmatched by anyone I have ever met, and I say that with confidence. I remember resenting him to an extreme when I was younger.

My brother was very much the same and it resulted in depression Our family life was very much out of the ordinary. I think the last four years of my brothers life we maybe spoke a total of 10 times lasting maybe 2-3 minutes. And he lived in the room next to mine in a 1700 sq foot house. Showing love and support for one another was absent from family life.

When friends would go to lunch with their dad or brother it was so foreign to me, like they were living in a little ‘house on the prairie’ world. I have had intense self esteem issues and remember believing with complete certainty that my parents didn’t love me. I was very popular with kids my age growing up and had plenty of friends. Sometimes too many. I was a people pleaser and cared a lot what others thought of me.

I had an issue with seeing myself as overweight to the extent that when graduating from elementary school and taking a field trip to the water park or having been invited to a friend’s pool party, I always found or created an excuse to prohibit me from participating. When I see pictures of myself at that age now it seems crazy to think I really thought I was overweight to such an extent. I was not skin and bones but at the same time was no where near fat in any sense of the word.

I was a natural athlete and due to my height played for top tier basketball teams as a kid. Going into high school the coach had advised me I would be considered a walk on and all I would have to do was go through the motions of trying out. I remember about to enter the gym and seeing they were playing shirts and skins games in tryouts. I stopped dead in my tracks and stepped back from the door looking through the window in horror.

My best friend later questioned why I didn’t tryout and kept reiterating the fact that I was at a skill level above most if not all the tryouts. I remember getting angry with him when he was trying to convince me of it. I don’t want this to come across as conceited in any way, but in retrospect he was right. Yet I fought him tooth and nail with annoyance about it. Almost physically wanting to fight him.

My intellect was another victim of my negative self talk despite my high test scores with little to no studying. I remember spending virtually no time on homework but managed to get high marks. My brother was in AP and accelerated classes and my father received a scholarship to Yale and Dartmouth which lead to him creating one of the most successful pharmaceuticals on the market today.

So it’s not like I grew up in an atmosphere of ignorance or lack of concern for the importance of intellect. I don’t know why but I feel like I should mention this because despite his success he still drives a 2001 Honda and my mom up to about a couple months ago drove a 1992 Toyota van. Money was always of great emphasis in lieu of numbers on bank statements. In college my body image continued to plague me. At one point I was 160lbs at 6’2” and still I had “fat” parts of my body that kept me from being comfortable in my own skin.

My first major relationship didn’t come till I was 29. She was an extreme narcissist and to this day continues to have control of my emotional brain even though she consistently has acted with disrespect and consideration. So much so I am embarrassed to share the unimaginable treatment I get from her. If I had a friend in my shoes, I would laugh because of the ridiculous notion he was still involved with her.

With all that said, to address my negative self talk I want to start by expressing the support and resources available to me have been way more than adequate. I have been on virtually every medication there is for anxiety and depression. I have utilized numerous types of therapy and modalities in conjunction with medication. Everything from general therapy to EMDR and everything from Prozac to ketamine treatment.

Yet no matter what I learn or hear from the most professional and experienced people, nothing can shake my negative self talk. No one can convince that little voice in my head that can argue against any complete argument for how irrational my negative thinking is. It is so total, no matter how much effort I do to document or observe my negative self talk, it is so automatic it’s too big of a task to try to analyze. I am convinced I can never conquer it and has been the seed of all my failures and shortcomings in life. What can I do to resolve this?

Anything and everything people have as advice or suggestions I welcome.