Difficulty Trusting, Afraid to Love (Advice Needed!)

Hello!
I would like to discuss about a problem that's bothering me a while now.
I'm 19 years old and I had two long-term (for my age, 2 years each) relationships until now. Both of them ended harshly and had a massive impact on me. I had fallen into depression and got into self-injury too, believing that it was the only coping mechanism back then. The truth is that my character played a major role in my situation. I am the kind of person that has really low self-esteem, I'm emotional, dative and too much addicted to others when it comes to relationships. I really loved the persons I was with and gave 101% of myself to them. When it ended I was thinking things like "You should be even better, that's why it ended", "It's all your fault" and in general I was blaming myself guiding me to self-injury.
Now that the time passed is enough to get over it I'm facing another problem.
My past memories won't let me trust or come closer to people.
In general I tend to:
-Hate everyone who hurt me (by hate, I mean really intense repulsion).
-Break down every opportunity to come closer to people emotionally, believing that it will conclude in the same way as my other relationships.
-Acting with aggression and lack of respect to people who want to create a deeper bond with me.
-Try to act inhumanly (not showing emotions)

Initially, I wanted to adopt that kind of behavior, believing that it will make me stronger being emotionless and cold to everyone.
Now it gets kind of annoying. I forced me to reject a few persons that , if my memories were better, I would love to be with. I think that I can't feel the same kind of "love" as before, I feel insecure, I'm not charmed so easily and my mood for contact is rather low.
I really achieved to calm down, maintain a balance to my emotions, deal with other aspects of life, deal with self-injury, be creative etc.
But I don't believe I can do that forever. The human needs love, doesn't he?
Is there any way to change my character so I won't be so addicted to others?

What would you suggest/advice me to do?
Every comment much appreciated!

Hi Stitch,

I think you have had a lot of relationship experience for your age. So maybe now would be a good time to try to enjoy being single?

Breakups can be really hard. After being together for a couple of years, it's going to hurt. Maybe even more so when you don’t have a strong sense of self or are not used to being alone.
Allow yourself time to heal. Give yourself permission to feel sad and crabby.

It looks like you've identified some of you weaknesses, such as having low self-esteem and being addicted to others. Now you can use this knowledge to work on these areas. It's okay to have weaknesses - we all do!

I don't think being emotional is a weakness. Some people simply are more emotional than others. It's what you do with those emotions that matter. Maybe think about how you react when you are sad or angry, and see if you can come-up with more positive ways to express how you feel or release those emotions.

I'd try to stop blaming yourself. Successful relationships rely on the cooperation and commitment of both people. You can't make a relationship work on your own, so I very much doubt it's all your fault. And remember, it's not a mistake if you learn from it. Any knowledge or skills you gained will serve you well in your future relationships.

Maybe if you can learn to forgive yourself and feel better about yourself, your heart will open to feel love for others again? Because you are still hurting from the past, you are probably closed off from others to protect yourself from more hurt.

Have you got someone to talk to about your feelings?

Thank you for your suggestions Platypus!
Yes I have someone to share these experiences and my feeling.
I'll try to work it out, especially my low self-esteem cause it's getting on the way for other things too.
Again, thank you!

I have a lot of negative feelings that I kept holding on. At first, I really don’t know how to overcome it. I tend to forget my sadness rather than to face it. I never knew that my feelings would affect me so much. These thoughts and feelings kept me weak and down. I don’t know the reason maybe it was my mind telling me I had enough. So I tried the Yuen method with Paul (YM practitioner), I was so amazed of the changes I have in my body energetically. This energy healing imparts a big help in my life as all my negative issues were all deleted. But after my 1st session, I felt a significant reduction in my emotional problem and my whole body felt looser and more relaxed. It turns out the issues I thought I had were not my main problem, the problem were issues I had held since my childhood. Now that they are all corrected and eliminated, I'm so much more relaxed and happier with what I am now. My life is almost back to normal and I’m feeling so much better now.

I went thru a phase where I was completely shattered by a relationship because it went bad. I had committed myself to it and at the time I was engaged to a delightful thoughtful caring lady - well so I thought. It turns out that she was a lying, manipulative cow only chasing the bigger better deal.

Being in the military at the time I was away quite a bit and one day came home to an almost empty house. Most of my stuff was there, some of our stuff remained and none of her things did. She took 3 of my most treasured possessions, left the worst of our shared stuff and didn't even leave a not. So after that it took me a good 6 months to trust women, this didn't include friends. I was able to trust women friends after a month but I didn't open up or share anything of value because they didn't have full trust.

Eventually I lernt to trust again, and recently it was again dinted by I can still trust women, it's just harder for me to trust 'new' women openly.

I understand exactly how you feel, I've been there.....and at the same age too!! (though 19 was some time ago for me, lol!) Though for me, these feelings came about when I got out of a serious yet very abusive relationship. I was cold-hearted, vengeful towards men in general, physically aggressive, emotionally detached, the whole nine yards. It actually worked great for me for a while. It was a defense mechanism for sure, and I believe that for a short period, it was just what I needed. Then one day I realized that deep down, that's just not who I am. I'm caring, compassionate and empathetic; I fall in love easily and I get hurt easily. I require emotional bonds just to survive. I didn't want to be that monster I'd turned in to. It took me a solid two years to break the cycle, and boy was it hard. But I made it through.

Platypus gave very good advice. You seem to be self-aware, and that's a good thing. Just don't take it overboard, blaming yourself for everything, etc. In one of the self-help type books I've read, (yes, I'm one of THOSE people! lol), it talks a lot about being reactive -vs- proactive. Give that some thought. Self-harm and blaming yourself for everything is being reactive. Being proactive is hard - I struggle with it plenty - but when you can, try to step back from your life to get a better view. Evaluate your reactions, how they could've been different, and what the different outcomes may have been. Practice this with issues that have already passed, and think about this when new issues arise. It does help once you get the hang of it

Don't be too hard on yourself. I promise, you are not the only one out there like this!!! Just work on turning your self-awareness and emotions into something positive. And always remember; things get hard and bad things happen - but life does go on, and life can be whatever you make of it.

"This too shall pass"

Thank you so much for your replies you're a big help, I really appreciate it!

Stitch, I am sure that you will trust and love again when you feel ready, sometimes the pain can be very intense at the start of a break up and over time it fades. I have felt that intense pain but found that I can still love, be loved and of course trust again and that is the key... knowing you can do them again when the time is right.