For much of my life I was told I was stupid and bad. How can I stop believing it?

I don’t need to rehash my life story but would like to provide some context.

I’m a woman in my mid-to-late-twenties who lives in NYC. I was born into a middle-class family in an economically depressed part of the state where certain opportunities were lacking. My family life was also very stressful as a child and adolescent partially because my parents were very demeaning and emotionally abusive. My father is a narcissistic rageaholic who was physically abusive, mean, and would sometimes scream that I should never have been born, he didn’t love me, and that I should kill myself. It was horrible.

My mother did love my brothers and I, but she also suffered from emotional problems and alcoholism as well as a condition my boyfriend and I jokingly refer to as “Southern Italian Cray”. She kind of acted like a stereotypical Italian-American “mama bear” who loved us but could also be tough and irrational. She died suddenly of undetected lung cancer when I was 24 and I haven’t spoken to my father since but I do miss my mom a lot in spite of some of her flaws…

Since my early twenties, I’ve been in two emotionally and sexually abusive relationships (I know, I should have learned the first time.) and I left my second abusive ex about a year and a half ago and have been seeing a very nice man for 9 months who has been a stabilizing and normalizing influence in my life. He has a very calm, soothing energy and we rarely argue or have any strife between us beyond who’s going to do the dishes that night or other silly things like that. It’s nice to have something nice for once…

My career has also had a lot of ups and downs. My father forced me to attend community college because I wasn’t smart enough for a four-year school according to him, but I proved him wrong and transferred to a university near the city when I was 20. During my early twenties, I had a short but successful run as a commercial print model which was fun and exciting a good for my self-esteem, but I also made the mistake of dating two abusive guys in a row for no good reason. (I guess I thought that’s how “normal” relationships where.)

I had what many would think was a “good” job in marketing until recently but was unfairly terminated for respectfully standing up to the CEO for treating me differently because of my gender and soft-spoken, affable nature. (Expecting me to fulfill admin duties that were not part of my job description and basically be a stand-in wife/mom/caregiver to all of my male colleagues). I was often subtly demeaned at work and was rarely given credit when it was due. Eventuall,y I kind of said “f*ck it” and decided to say something…and was fired until they begged me to stay on as a freelancer because they realized that they did actually need me and probably wanted to avoid a discrimination lawsuit or something. IDK why because NYS is an at-will employer and it’s impossible to sue your boss…but whatever.

So now here I am. 26 years old living in Manhattan and trying to run a successful freelance writing business. It’s been surprisingly okay the past several months in spite of the horrible taxes and occasional clients-from-hell but my self-esteem is in the gutter. My boyfriend loves me and respects me, my friends adore me but I still feel like the same “bad” “worthless” little girl I did when I was growing up. I’ve proved everyone wrong, gone to college, lived abroad and have to the untrained eye “made it” in spite of my struggles. Why do I feel so shitty and why can’t I stop crying? I’d hate for it to be because I’m just crazy but there’s got to be some way to break the cycle too…

Thanks for reading. No derogatory answers, please. (This is the internet after all, and it’s a sensitive topic.) Standing by for the collective’s thoughts.