Some people can manage to live with quite weird train of thoughts, but for others, it will lead to feelings of inadequacy, to a lack of social skills and of self-confidence that will cause damages to the social and professional life. Then, it starts a vicious circle, as you are failing harder and harder, not having a rewarding job, feeling yourself truly inadequate and unworthy of having better. You feel like everything is your fault and that you shouldn't bother those who are "talking with you out of pity" as that would "scare them off as they see how worthless you actually are". And the more it goes, the more you fail, with you yourself seeing every good thing that happens to you as the beginning to a cruel joke that will slam you as to show that you're the problem.
Until you decide to eliminate the problem by yourself.
And "being tough", kicking the other into getting himself together works mostly in the movies or with people with a different problem. Here, you need a helping hand, someone who will listen to you and hopefully will not screw it even further. A good friend, a girl/boyfriend, even a coworker can really help, but in a lot of cases, the affected person will not open him/herself to it because they are sure they would frighten that individual away from them. Thus the importance of having somebody who will know how to deal with you and who you will be sure they'll keep your secrets safe. For thousands of years, this was one of the most important jobs of the priests, to listen, advise and keep their mouth shut about what they heard. This is still one of the most important job they have, and probably one of the most rational and scientifical reasons to keep religious people around. But there are also medical personel trained in the workings of psychology and communication that will be particularly helpful. Sure, some of them are conmen, but a lot if not the large majority of them will help you if you need it.
You had the luck and the will to come out of it without professional help and I did too. But a lot of other people don't have that and will slowly destroy their life and their close one's when they finally snap and kill other people or themselves.
