CWB

i have scanned thru this thread ... there are some valid points that were stated . i am no expert on such matters , i will only speak of what i have personally come to realize . these are only opinions and suggestions ... hell , nobody likes to be told what to do and i aint got the right to do that to someone else !
many years ago i too found myself in such a situation ... i couldn't figure out why i could not rid myself of the feelings/emotions i had for someone who obviously had no respect for me ... the old "stick-yer-hand-in-the-fire" thing . a rational person would run like hell the other way !
the bottom line is that i had a pretty low sense of self-esteem ... there are/were a lot of other things going on upstairs as well . i began to use vast quantities of alcohol to try to escape from the pain and mental anguish (read as not dealing with life on lifes terms) ... this was the start of my many year long down-hill run .
i will not go into the details of what happened along the way ... i finally became humble , learned some sense of humility and became teachable ... the end point is that i have now been sober for 18.5 years and along with the chemical sobriety i have mental sobriety ... the two have to go hand in hand . i must say that life today is much better than i ever could have imagined . what i learned was that i had to look at the things in my life for what they really were ... this included myself .
happiness is an inside job ... if i aint happy on the inside then all the other "stuff" in the world will not be worth a flip ! i learned that i do have the right to be happy , joyous and free . over the course of time i got "weller" , it did not happen overnight but it did/is happen(ing) ! i became willing to do whatever it took to get "weller" .
there are many "self-help" and other groups out there . you might check with the city/county mental health departments . a lot of these have free programs or are funded in some manner ... explore the options !
some people have a "thing" about anything "mental" ... as my old DI told all of us in reference to going out on our first 24 hour pass (and vd) ; "men , there aint no shame in getting it ... the shame is in keeping it" . how true were his words and had much more depth to them than i ever imagined !
one thing that helped me out was to "own my own , not a nickle more or a nickle less" .
good luck to you ... life is certainly an adventure !