Lifelong feelings of inferiority, incapability

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My entire life I've had a strong feeling that I was not as capable or competent at the necessary activities of life as other people. As a kid I had a lot problems with absenteeism in school due to severe depression coupled with anxiety and an intense dislike of school. I did go to college, though, and did very well. I've had a lot of evidence that I'm at least as capable at most things I try as other people, but there is still this strong lack of belief in my abilities.

As I mentioned, my problems with depression started in childhood and continue to this day. One result is that I often have a sense of futility or pointlessness about my life. It can be hard to muster the necessary effort to make positive changes when it all seems so pointless to begin with. In addition, I tend to have a strong aversion to risk, which makes things like looking for a better job (my current one doesn't pay enough and is below my abilities) seem especially daunting.

Anyway, I've come to realize that this intense lack of belief in myself is one of the main issues in my life that's holding me back. My life really kind of sucks right now. I never have any money for anything enjoyable, my social life is more or less non-existent, and I often feel restricted by anxiety (which has been another long-standing issue for me). I'm taking a small dose of an SSRI medication which does reduce some of the severe anxiety that I've had, but I can't tolerate a high enough dosage to make a huge difference because of over-sensitivity to side effects. I have gone the rounds with therapists before, but I tended to find it either not very helpful or actually damaging. Also, I've made a fairly intense study over the last several years of anything that I thought might help me psychologically (cognitive behavioral therapy, meditation, etc.). I feel like it's helped me more overall than therapy did, but there's still this persistent fear that I may not really be up to the challenges of life. I'm feeling stuck in a very dreary and unfulfilling existence, and it seems so hard to break out of it.

I feel simularly, except I haven't really had a job I've attempted them but couldn't live up to the expectations. That is also part of why I stopped going to college, but not the only reason.

I recognize much of what you describe in myself. Despite many indications that I am very good at the things I do, I am easily demoralized even when complimented. About 10 years ago, I was building up a pretty good commercial photography career and even though I was getting good responses from art directors and photo buyers, the more I worked, the more I felt like I was failing.

Things haven't changed much. I made a short film recently and people who have seen it seem to like it, but I am very resistant to showing it to people. I have managed to submit it to one festival and I know I need to submit it to a whole lot more, but it's hard to get past the feeling that it's a stupid film that I should be embarrassed to have made.

As far as I can tell, my feelings of self doubt will be with me regardless of what I do. The best I can hope for is to keep pushing myself to do things despite the constant feelings of failure.

One thing that a friend pointed out to me yesterday that I think is an important issue... Over the past 15 years I have gone from a job where there was a wide range of people coming and going and I had contact with many people with different ideas and points of view. This provided mental stimulation because my own ideas were frequently challenged.

Then I moved to a job where I worked with a number of different people, but they were all doing aproxamately the same job. Later I moved to a my current job where I rarely interact with more than 4 different people. In this time i have gone from believing i could build an exciting future for myself to feeling like i have no future at all. I think my friend is right; that my sense of self is greatly influenced by how much I interact with others on a daily basis.

I live alone and rarely socialize. While being around people can be pretty exhausting, it seems to be critical to me having a balanced sense of myself. I need to find some new activities that will force me to interact with a wider variety of people. I used to take classes, but have not done that much lately. Maybe it's time to do that again.

I don't think interacting with a wide variety of people is going to cure my feelings of inferiority, but other people's points of view might help to give me a bit of perspective and keep me from going too far with my feelings of self doubt. I think that when I am alone for too long, there is nothing to counteract my negative self image. And I don't get new ideas from looking at what other people are doing. Other people, even if they are not trying to encourage me, still give me something to bounce ideas off of. Or else they give me something to bring out my competitiveness. Being alone too long, I only have my own thoughts running through my head and that gives me no new input.

I'd be curious to know what you think of this idea. I haven't had a chance to test it out yet, but I really think that interacting with others, even when it is exhausting, will help my state of mind. Do you think something like this might help you?