I Have Issues

A Brit has told me he can provide me with a psychological analysis. I'm sure he can. But as I have already previously been in therapy I doubt I would be surprised with much or anything he had to say. Here are some of my issues:

• Obvious one is my fear of commitment, which I have discussed a few times here already. But where does this stem from? An easy answer is that I was burned and am either afraid of my own future choices in men or now can't trust men. My ex lied to me about his intentions for our future and in the end cheated on me as well. But the truth is I'm over that already. I knew all along that he had a tendency to lie and I was in the relationship way too long to not be able to at least subconsciously admit that we weren't headed for the future I wanted. The trust thing? I don't have trust issues; I really don't. He was not cheating on me for very long before things ended, and my instincts told me something was wrong. It wouldn't have been long (had we stayed together) before I found out on my own. And I know that some men cheat and others don't. I rely on my instincts and my ability to analyze a situation to decide if someone is breaking my trust.
• But what I do have is trust issues with myself. I do not trust myself to do what is best for me. This is why I stayed with the ex for far too long. It was the easy thing to do and I didn't care to change things even though it was not a healthy situation for me. Further, I allowed my personality to change over a long period of time to fit the relationship so that by the time I left the relationship, I no longer recognized myself. I have gotten back the Tina I used to be, the Tina I actually like to be. But I do not at this point trust myself to protect that personality and not lose it in the next relationship.
• I allow people to use me. Not for sex; that is not what I am referring to here. Any time I've slept with a guy I had my eyes wide open to what he wanted or didn't want from me. I allow people to use me in other ways. I allow my family to take advantage of me in caring for my mother. At first, it only made sense. I was the one closest geographically to her. I was the one who had the easiest time leaving work during the day. When Tom left me, I even ended up living in my parents' house. And since I was the one without a boyfriend, without school, well, why shouldn't I take care of her? But I ended up taking on the whole burden of being caretaker. No one else did anything and I allowed it. It sucked the life out of me. I'm better now. After getting my head on a bit straighter, I demanded more help. I mean, after a couple of months of wallowing in depression, I wanted a life again. Yet my family has been trained that I will pick up the slack, that I am the one that can take care of everything in a crisis, and they still tend to take advantage of that. Sometimes I let it slide before I realize what is going on, and sometimes I am able to force everyone into doing their share.
• I also thrive on other people. I cannot be alone for too long before I begin to sink into depression. I love having friends and can't have enough of them. Because of this, I also tend to let some friends take advantage of me. Most of my friends are true and good friends and don't do this, and I am working on standing up to the other ones. But it is a lot of work because I want so much for everyone to like me that I hate to say anything that may upset them. So there are two problems here: One is that I need to learn to be okay with being alone; the other is that I need to set boundaries with the "friends" that want to take advantage of my friendship.

Of course, I have many other issues. Don't we all? But those are the biggest ones as I see them. Although feel free to let me in on whatever other problems you think I may have, because one strength of mine is that I have a fairly thick skin and rarely get bothered by what others say and think about me.