While thinking about the events of the last week or so, I thought of something that saddened me:
Your desire to be self-sacrificing is because you believe that you are in immense social debt with everyone you interact with.
Which then simplifies to:
You want to do things for others because you think that you're not "good enough" otherwise.
With extra context, that simplifies to:
You do things for others because you want to feel like you belong.
At that point, I realized something-- why would I believe that? How is this supposed to work, when I also believe that I don't owe strangers anything, and that strangers don't owe me anything either? Which then made me realize I'm still bitter about events from three years ago. I can't deny them, that was still me, but that feeling of guilt... it's inescapable. I fucked up, and I need to make amends. Seems to be a recurring theme, and I'm certain that I'm annoying you all by bringing up the same thing, over and over. I won't speak on this again if you tell me to stop.
This notion of "social debt", as I've decided to call it, is clearly working to some extent. I've managed to not alienate people, hopefully, but I still think that at any moment, I could end up repeating that same incident. I'm still assuming that I'm on the edge of getting cut off, like some kind of bank account that can only be right above the overdraft limit or millions of dollars below it. It's strange that the thing that might make me worth something in this world has such self-serving and selfish roots. I don't know how to cope with something that contradictory. I can't make heads or tails of the point I'm trying to make. I'm searching for an exact solution to the underlying problem, but I'm stubbornly refusing to accept that most problems are outright unsolvable, like the wannabe mathematician I am.