Hi po_is,
Your post made me smile, I really enjoyed reading it. First let me just say, please do not idealize me. I don't consider myself 100% cured, and in fact just today I was self loathing a bit. But, I sense deep down that for a long time now I have been on a gradual path to recovery. I know that I am in a calmer, happier, healthier place physically, emotionally, spiritually, than I was 3 years ago, 1 year ago, and 6 months ago, but you can never stop improving. The path to recovery is a continuous process, not a destination. Hoping for a miracle or magic bullet solution is probably wishful thinking.
I will now answer your questions to the best of my ability. Some of my answers my sound a bit corny, or cliche, and for that I apologize, but they are my honest answers and reflect how I feel at the moment.
For me, I think one of the barriers towards understanding what my psyche contributes to this syndrome is that I don't even know where to start looking! I've spent so much of my life patiently waiting for things to settle down, it's difficult sometimes to imagine that I could be much more accepting of my disorder.
I agree, it is extremely difficult when one does not know where the start looking, and when all you want to do is have everything settle down so you can just crawl into a corner and breathe for a moment. The trick I have found is that things start calming down when I start calming down, not the other way around. Learning to be OK with me not being in control of everything was a big help. Learning to be OK with not knowing all the answers has also been a big help. Realizing that I am "enough", and that it's normal to not feel perfect, has been very important for me.
Are there any exercises that you think might help others learn to feel more comfortable in their own skin? What worked for you?
As for feeling comfortable in one's own skin, I think ironically I have felt best when I am most willing to embrace the discomfort. Laughter is important. Also, realizing that nothing is all good or all bad, all positive or all negative, all black or all white. Life is about that grey area. I think we often fear that if other people were to know the true extent of our problems and insecurities, they would reject us. But actually when we just start talking, communicating, and asking for help, we learn that we are not alone, and from that sense of togetherness, comes comfort. Also, realizing that it is OK to accept help from others sometimes, in fact other people want to help us. Getting out and socializing, as painful and awkward as it may be at first, is also good for getting more comfortable in one's skin.
You've talked a little about internal balance and the depletion of nutrients, and I've noticed that you seem somewhat effusive when describing the ideas that have helped you. Have you ever tried hypnosis or something similar as part of your recovery?
My therapist was trained in hypnotherapy. I think she tried a little bit on me, but I honestly don't even remember what she did on me, or if she used it at some other time. She gave me some relaxation CD's to play when I go to sleep and they are EXTREMELY relaxing for me. I highly recommend looking around for something like this.
How do you let go? I feel like I would have to drastically change my circumstances in order to truly relax, and I'm kind of afraid to do that given how much of my life I've wasted already. How did you do it? It must have taken some balls to quit your career and set up your own business! Were there any people or circumstances you felt you needed to escape? Any doubts, logistically or spiritually?
Letting go is not easy, and I don't have the perfect answer for you. You might want to research it for yourself and see what resonates with you. What I can say, is that it is a process, not a single event or destination. You can imagine it as a gentle unraveling as you get more and more comfortable letting others around you take the heavy burden off of you so that you can focus more on things that you really enjoy thinking about.
I also feel sometimes like I've wasted some of my life, but it's important to stay positive and remind ourselves that everything does happen for a reason, and ultimately all of this is helpful because it allows us to become more complex individuals with more depth of personality.
The way I got into my current business, I basically fell into it after I was essentially fired from a trading job when I was slamming into a physical and emotional brick wall. Of course at the time I absolutely hated the people at work and didn't want to be around them for a second longer. Probably today I would get along better with them, due to me being in a somewhat healthier place, but it's all in the past now. Of course there was an insane amount of personal disappointment and sheer terror at what would happen next-- it felt at the time like my life was over. In reality, it was closer to my life starting to begin. I really had no choice at that point but to find something to do on my own, since I didn't even have the energy to look for another job. Nevertheless, I scrambled to find something to do to pay my bills, and it's been growing ever since. I still feel a bit like I'm in the gerbil wheel, but I think that feeling has been fading as life opens up a bit more all the time and I get more comfortable returning to feeling like a "human being" rather than a "human doing".
Finally if its not too personal, I'd like to ask you more about the girl you dated 
. How does an internet entrepreneur go about meeting a human female? Were you looking for someone at the time or did it just sort of happen? How was she different to other girls, and what would you say you learned from her during your relationship?
If you had asked me at any time during my corporate jobs if I wanted to meet a girl, I would have said absolutely, I would have killed to socialize, but looking back, my mindset was so closed, and I was in such a dark place emotionally, that even if I had met someone, nothing would have happened. I was emotionally dead for a long time, in a vicious negative cycle of isolation, with massive emotional walls put up. After about a year on my own doing my little business stuff, an online friend that I met encouraged me to sign up for online dating. I was really cynical about it, since I felt no good could come from it, and it was for losers. But, I did it anyway, I started messaging some girls, some responded and we had brief conversations online, and before long, a girl messaged me, we did the witty banter thing. Even though I desperately wanted to go out on a date, I also didn't really take her very seriously since I just thought she was some cute little dumb whore. I was just happy to finally have a date again, and hopefully get a blowjob too, and I figured since life seemed to suck for me anyways, I had nothing to lose nowadays, so I might as well just let her into my heart from the get-go -- whoever she was -- and not bring any expectations or try too hard, which is something I've never really done with girls before. Well, letting go and making myself vulnerable with her turned out to be the magic formula, since the sparks flew like nothing I'd ever experienced. She was incredibly patient and listened to me, my story, my experience. It was truly magical... fairy tale like. I came home from that first date thinking "wow, I just met the girl of my dreams". It felt like I was floating on a cloud. Even my therapist said most people probably don't have such an intense experience.
What happened after that became a big mess, but I think I'm just happy that it happened and I seem to be in a better place today. It feels like ever since I met the girl, my mind has been converting every part of my daily life to "level up" to what I felt and experienced when I was with the girl. So, probably if I were to meet her again today, it would not feel quite as magical. The best way I can describe it is if you gave a poor person in China a delicious well cooked Sirloin steak, and they thought it was the best meal they had ever eaten, and then in the next 6 months they starting changing their life one day at a time until they were eating Sirloin steaks every single day, so that poor Chinese person would need something a whole lot more satisfying since they have become somewhat desensitized to the delicious steaks since its just a regular dinner for them now.
