tl/dr: I identiy with some of what you say. Counseling might help but don’t expect an easy panacea. I busy myself with positive things to crowd out the negative when all else fails, and although it is hard for me to sustain that effort in my current situation, when I do that stuff it does work.

The weight of my past experiences became a burden that I haven’t been able to really manage for a long time now: traumatic childhood coupled with and exacerbated by undiagnosed ‘autism’ - in quotation marks because although it is an important part of my story, and an accurate dianosis, it is a bit of a ‘diagnosis du jour’, and nowhere near the self-image I have constructed and I struggle with how I see myself. I very much identify with your experience of having an inaccurate self-image. I came up with reasons as to why I suffered burn out that just weren’t real and need to try and deconstruct that story that I have told myself.

I understand what has happened in my life, and why and how I have ended up where I have, but that isn’t in and of itself enough for me to manage. I personally need quite a large and regimented daily program of stuff (none of it too fancy - exercise, things that give me purpose, and ultimately crowd out the negative things) just to stay on an even keel. I am often not able to sustain the effort and struggle. I need more help than is available in my current situation, and so I am not able to contribute in the manner I can - I am normally a very high achiever.

Counseling can help, but my experience was that finding a counselor that was good for me wasn’t straightforward. In fact after lots of trying I hardly managed it; one helped me through a particularly difficult period, but that was it. I am far from ‘cured’ in any meaningful sense at all.

A general retreat to Tor is probably necessary at this point for people who want a something like a non-tracked web culture.