Reply #16: Having struggled with this for a long time,

[enough]

I think what you just said is the most important thing: "I'm no better and I'm no worse than anyone else." I think we who have depression and self-hatred think that we are somehow different from everyone else.

If you can let go of the need to be either better or worse than everyone else, things get a lot easier. You are just one more regular person, a mixture of good things and bad things, just like everyone else.

It actually helps me as a sort of mantra to remind myself that there are over six billion human beings on the face of the planet right now. In that context, the question of whether I am good enough, or strong enough, or talented enough, or pretty enough, really shows itself to be absurd. Especially since you know that every single other one of those six billion people is wondering the same thing about himself and herself.

If you can keep this sort of context in your life, you can just go about doing what you want to do, without all the anxiety. Works for me.