Self-sabotage is one of the coping mechanisms I've developed at a younger age. However, its machinations don't help me at all and it only makes things worse. The antidote is confidence. I don't even blame myself for not having a lot of confidence in the first place. I get mine through helping others and taking care of myself. Yet it's become very difficult to do this lately because depression gets in the way of telling me things that I'm not. Honestly, the world of validation is a strange but comforting one. It's easy to get lost in the sea of likes and approval that others provide. Yet, I often tell myself, that none of the things people have praised me for are worthy. The validation of others can only last so long too, given how hard it is to get even my own validation in the first place. I feel like I need a bit of others' validation to really tell me that I'm not going insane. Then I realized, there's a balance to strike between both types of validation to build confidence. Think of the need for validation as an adjusting slider that requires occasional monitoring. It's like opening a window for cold air in the hot summer, and closing it for more warmth in the winter.