I think I have a behavioural addiction

Hey @wittyPal7267,

You definitely don't have to feel stupid for typing that out. An addiction doesn't necessarily have to physically harm you. Here's one definition (not a diagnosis) of an addiction:

"a compulsive, chronic, physiological or psychological need for a habit-forming substance, behavior, or activity having harmful physical, psychological, or social effects and typically causing well-defined symptoms (such as anxiety, irritability, tremors, or nausea) upon withdrawal or abstinence." from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/addiction

I personally explain it like this: any behavior that you have to do, are unable to stop with by yourself and is preventing you to live your life in a healthy, stable manner is addictive behavior. Of course, one addiction is more harmful than the other, but I truly believe that any behavior that is preventing you to live your life normally can be treated equally. And even though I don't fully understand what exactly the addiction is that you are describing (as in what you are doing when you tallk about personality theories), you are saying very clearly that what it is that you are doing is affecting your mental and social stability in a negative way. So please, do not feel stupid for saying so; I actually think this is very brave of you!

What I often see is that an addiction starts as a coping mechanism for something else. That's kind of what you are saying as well; you were feeling very depressed and very insecure, and as a way of coping with that, you decided to focus on this. And now, you can't stop it and it is affecting your everyday performance.

One thing that makes it really hard to stop an addiction like this is that by stopping with it, you are stopping with the way you have been coping with your depression and your insecurity. You can then look for another coping mechanism, but none of them you have the experience with as with your previous coping mechanism that you have been doing for so long and so you will fall back to your old, harmful habit.

Now, I can't tell you what to do in order to stop with this behavior (which might be a bit disappointing after having read through such a long text, for which I am sorry), but I can tell you that I believe that it is important to not just look at the addiction, but at the underlying cause. An that might be something you need help with.