Nolla - what was the deeper reason that you found for not feeling like you were as good as everyone else? Was it the introversion, or was it something else? What was that process like for you, if you're comfortable sharing? It seems like a unique take on this topic that hasn't been addressed yet -- solving the problem from the inside out, rather than the outside-in.
I don't think it's that unique. I guess this is something that would come up in a support group or in therapy.
I just had this revelation of some sort that it is absurd that I think of myself being worse than other people. I hadn't noticed it at all, because I had self-respect in other areas, I thought of myself as a smart guy and so on, I thought that it's enough and even despised some people for their popularity. I was better than the others because I didn't need anyone. But, I had a crush and didn't get the girl due to my poor social skills and overall cluelessness. That was when I had to face it, and I asked myself what is wrong with me. And it hit me that I really think of myself being inferior socially, that I think I am not someone you would like. I thought about this a long time. It takes a lot of time to think through it by yourself because you look at the problem throught the perception that's distorted by the problem. So, I wrote things down and thought about them. For maybe a year. I went through a phase I was blaming my broken family, then I thought about losing all of my childhood friends because of the divorce and the resulting move to another part of the region, then I thougth about my relationships with each of my parents individually, then about the overall dynamics I had with people. And at some point I had it figured out that there was nothing wrong with me, I just lost most of my contacts simultaneously while losing my trust in my parents, and my defensive reaction to that was to develop an idea of superiority, which kept me isolated from others. In others words, I didn't wait for the others to reject me. I did it first. Before we even met.
It sounds quite simple now, but it really wasn't... The mind doesn't easily let itself see that it is distorted. And when it sees it, then nothing is certain anymore. You need to build up another view of the world. In fact, I'm sure this would have been a lot easier for me if I had seen a therapist or something like that, but I didn't really know where to ask for help, and I was in a state in which I didn't think that anyone would like to help me anyways. On the other hand I had no respect for therapists. I thought that psychology is a messy wanna-be-science.
EDIT: I don't know if I am saying anyone should do it like this. It took me a long time, really. Just to get an idea of what was wrong was a year. And even then I had it only partly figured out. I corrected the picture as I went along. After attempting to re-create myself for the first time it took something like five years to become comfortable in most of the social situations. But, I don't know, I don't regret going about it this way, and I could not have done it the other way around. And it was almost ten years I was isolated so, it isn't surprising it took me some time to catch up.
EDIT No2: Actually, the funny thing is that there still are some after effects of this. Just this year I realized that because I had been able to overcome my social anxiety I had developed an idea that I can overcome just about any mental problem. This was proven wrong, of course, as I succumbed under too much stress and responsibility I had piled up for myself.
These ideas of superiority are really nasty business. They sneak up on you...