on self-image disorders

  I have self-image disorders. Among these disorders is this one: when in the presence of women to whom I am attracted, a part of my psyche splits off (or perhaps rises from the hidden deeps) and proceeds to render me nearly incompetent. This Dark Rising is hyper-critical: it analyzes everything I say and mind-lashes me for the slightest error in choice of words or topic; it tells me constantly, You are too fat for this girl to like you, your clothes are not nice enough for her to give you the time of day, she is only speaking to you out of kindness, and you are a revolting person not worth loving. The Dark Rising (which I am beginning to recognize as either an offshoot from or a perversion of my ego) tricks me into seeing myself as a pudgy, shy boy with crooked teeth standing sheepishly in the aisle of a schoolbus being rejected by a grade-school crush. It highjacks the self-image I work so diligently to craft, replacing it with the hard memory of being a pudgy, shy teenager with crooked teeth sitting by myself at a classmate's birthday party because I can't speak any German.
  While I am talking to a girl, the Dark Rising is constantly screaming at me to walk away, to remove myself from the situation before the inevitable - rejection - occurs. What is perhaps worst about this situation is that the girls can SENSE what is going on, i.e. the internal processes I so poorly understand that have sabotaged nearly every potentially positive relationship are so obvious to the other sex that they become self-fulfilling.
For many reasons, this situation is sub-optimal; after most nights out on the town, my self-esteem is in tatters, and it takes me a considerable amount of time to mend the frayed shreds back into a workable whole.
Basically, some part of me hates me so much that it cannot stand to allow the rest of me to be happy. I presume there are clinical definitions for all of the conditions described above, and that treatment methods exist which would allow me to conquer the Dark Rising. Perhaps it is because of my stubbornness, perhaps it is because of the advances I have made in understanding and (to a small degree) in controlling these negative processes, that I have not yet sought professional help. (Studying the Tao Te Ching has been instrumental in my efforts to conquer myself and to thus become truly strong.)
  Whatever the root causes, the Dark Rising is an immutable part of me. Whatever the reasons for its continued existence, it has led me into troughs as deep as they come, shadowy abysses within which the light of hope is but a cold, cruel memory, but from which I always seem to emerge (again, thanks to the Tao Te Ching, which teaches, first and foremost, to be merciful). I know that, in time, I will find the means to put the Dark Rising to rest, that I will carve alternate avenues through which my energies will flow, avenues that will lead, not to Sisyphean fluctuation, but to effortless Happiness.
  Until that time, however, my stunted and destructive ego will continue to wreck any attempts at maintaining positive and fulfilling relationships, and I will continue to ride this roller coaster of my own making, the terrifying inevitability of my suffering comforting only in its familiarity.

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