I (M25) am addicted to hating myself and using the people I love to feed it — how do I break this cycle?

If someone asked me to describe myself honestly: a worthless, immature, impulsive man with no control over his thoughts, feelings, words or actions — someone who occasionally creates chaos just for attention, even at others' expense. I want to change. I genuinely do. But I can't tell if I can't or if I simply don't want to — and that uncertainty alone is its own kind of hell.

I react before I think — if I even think at all. There's a perpetual brain fog between whatever's happening around me and any reasonable response I could give, and by the time clarity arrives, I've already hurt someone. I'm a sore loser and a sore winner. "I didn't mean to" and "I'm truly sorry" have started sounding hollow even to my own ears. I chase people for attention in embarrassing ways. I get visibly, pathetically hurt by the smallest words or actions. I am emotionally fragile in the most uncomfortable sense — when all I want is to be someone people can actually rely on without having to handle me with care.

And then there's the jealousy. Not just of people being happier than me — but of people who get to be what I desperately want to be. When I see someone relied upon, confided in, chosen — I don't just envy them, I resent it, because that is all I have ever wanted. To be the person someone comes to with their problems. To be trusted, genuinely loved, worth caring for — without having to engineer it or beg for it. Instead, when a friend trusted me enough to cry in front of me, part of me felt special — and then felt rage when they leaned on someone else more. I know how sick that sounds. I know.

I've tried building small habits to hold myself accountable. They collapse, because my memory is terrible and my follow-through worse. The laziness to change is as much the problem as the behaviour itself. I can see exactly who I want to be — and then do nothing consistent enough to become them.

And I don't even know what my "true self" actually is. That scares me more than anything — because what if I dig deep enough and find something genuinely twisted? What if the jealousy, the manipulation, the hollow apologies — what if that is me?

I vent all of this to the very friends I'm describing — not to unburden myself, but for their reassurance and love. A hit of validation. And the moment I realise I've burdened them, I go back again to confirm I haven't — and the cycle feeds itself.

Therapy isn't an option right now financially, and I refuse to keep dumping this on friends who deserve far better than a continuous negativity machine that can't stop making more of it.

I'm aware of every ugly corner of this. But what the hell comes after awareness, when the habit runs this deep? Has anyone actually broken out of something like this — and where do you even begin?