Fantastic! I mean, it's horrible - but fantastic that you've realized it! It's impossible to fix something if you don't know what you're dealing with.

skeeweeaka: it was an enormous lightbulb moment for me when I first realized it. I literally went "...Oooooooh", it was as if I had all the pieces of the puzzle but I wasn't able to put them together until then.
Heh, "Should I stay or should I go?" by The Clash is a song I've played way, way too much. Stop telling yourself that you're at fault, and try to look at your behavior from an objective perspective. Things will fall into place eventually, but you gotta stop self-sabotaging and fogging up your perspective.

Sannah is so right, we've created this feeling of worthlessness ourselves - so it's up to us to change that, and we CAN!
I don't know about the rest of you, but for me it was like a series of trigger-points and everything was connected; "I act this way because of that, then that behavior led to that which started that, then that happened and that made that worse" and so on. 10 years of history of abuse right in front of me, and I was blaming it all on me and sabotaging my life.

Google for "self sabotage abuse " and "self destructive abuse" and you'll find a whole lotta great pages. Self-sabotage is something I'd never heard of before, but as I was reading about it I went "I do that.. that to.. yes, yes and that, oh and that"

"Self-sabotage behavior is most recognizable by the experience of an internal "tug-of-war" between having a desire to do something and feeling like you can't or shouldn't do it. Any time you hear yourself say, "I want to do this, but I can't or I shouldn't!" this is the inner conflict of self-sabotage behavior.""

"Self-sabotage behavior damages your self-esteem and causes you to lose confidence in yourself. It can create feelings of frustration, discouragement, resentment, anger and panic.
Most significantly, it stops you from doing and having the things you really want for your life!

What do you want that you don't have?
Do you long to be in a loving, caring, committed relationship?
Do you crave financial security, or maybe even financial abundance?
Do you pray for emotional peace and happiness?
Do you long to find a career you really love, or perhaps long to be successfully self-employed?
Do you have an agonizing desire to lose weight and love your body?


Do you yearn to feel like your time spent here on earth has meaning and value?
Well, why don’t you "just do it?"
It isn’t as simple as "just doing it" because desire isn’t enough to create what you want if you have internal conflicting beliefs surrounding your desired goals."

I want to be in a loving, stable relationship. I also want to lose weight and love my body. I've sabotaged every single chance I've had at that "I'm not worthy of being pretty" --my words, right before I munch on some cake. "I'm not good enough for him" --my words, right before I break up with him.

Y'all might want to look into self-sabotage, it can explain a lot of things.