Could you expand on this?
Well, I was very science orientated growing up, I thought about lot of things and tried to make theories fit in my world view, but I never focused on thinking about myself. When I did, it was enough to know the popular idea behind psychotherapy. You know, we all know the principles, they are all over the popular culture, tv, magazines and so on. Then I just went by a hunch that there is some point in all that, and I took my scientific approach and applied it to my very vague idea about self-therapy. I started thinking about my problems and had all these theories about them.
Like, for example, I was very awkward socially. I traced it back to childhood. There was a cold relationship with my dad, the divorce of my parents which led to me losing all of my friends (as we had to move away), there also was this new responsibility that I was forced to take as the oldest of the children which made me lose my childishness overnight. And then there was listening to both mom and dad talking shit about each other after the divorce. Anyhow, all these things had led me up to the point where I had no trust in relationships and I saw people scheming, stupid, irrational and sometimes evil.
Now, it might seem easy to collect those facts about your life, but when I did it, it wasn't. It's like I was blind to them, I knew everything had happened like that, but I never connected them in this way. Now I saw that my failure was not mine at all, I was furious. I wrote down all my thoughts about all this and it was black and white for a long time, but at some point I started seeing their perspective and started forgiving them. I'd say the smartest thing I did was to write it down since I could actually see the perspective changing, and I could go back and check what part of my conclusions was not true and what was.
Well, then I did some dream analysis. I don't know if it is as efficient, I don't dream that much, but it did give me some fresh ideas. One thing that I realized was that I hadn't dreamed during the time I was numb. Then I realized I had stopped drawing too. Then I learned to draw again.
Overlapping these two "therapies" there was the existential anxiety. I didn't believe in anything so I didn't have any easy solution for it. I think this was the hardest to tackle with my methods. How can you find meaning through science? But, it kinda dissolved itself as I was getting better and making friends. At first the friendships seemed to be either "shallow" in a way it was fun but nothing more, or they were tools for the therapy. I might add that as a tool, it can backfire. While I did realize a lot about myself, I also lost all of the friends who counseled me at that time. I don't regret it, I am mostly thankful for them to take me forward. The thing is, I still felt like people are letting me down. In time I came to see that they didn't let me down no more than I let them down, it was just something to be accepted. Acceptance is actually very important thing, but the problem is that some things should not be accepted. Like, if I had accepted the way I was, I wouldn't be here now. So, it's like when you have thought things through and you see that there is no way out of this, like it is a natural law, then it must be accepted. You can't fight gravity. But be sure to think it through first.
Oh, heh, then I had this time I had come to a conclusion I would go and make myself more of an extrovert. Damn, that was a fiasco! But still, I learned something. Again, I accepted the way I am, and was motivated to find a place where my introversion would be somehow fit for the social setting.
I think these days I don't anymore have existential dilemmas, since I have made this growth into a religion of some sort. I am thoroughly committed to living by the rules I've made for myself, and I believe that the only way I can be happy (this is not really a good word, but I can't think of anything better now) is to learn from my mistakes, and grow. It's like I know I am becoming a better person, so the pain that I have due to my mistakes is meaningful. Oh, that, by the way, is important for me too. They are my mistakes. I see everything as my mistake if it's not obvious that it is someone else's. I take responsibility for things that normally wouldn't be anyone's responsibility. Like, if I live with some people and the mood in the house is bad, I see it in a certain way my problem and responsibility if I hadn't done anything to change it. Still, I don't go just saying them that we need to fix this now. That could make it worse. I wait for a chance to say or do something to subtly steer things to a right direction.
But, yeah, that's all I can come up with now. I hope you'll get the idea, this wasn't very systematical post. I'm not saying this will work for you, since you might have some other, better methods. For me the jump from empirical science to psychology/ philosophy was a short one.
EDIT: By the way, what made me start this quest was a shocking feeling of inadequacy, regret, guilt and self-loathing. So, there you have the purpose of feeling. The pain motivated me for years. I am glad for that.