So I'd like to start out by saying that I think I'm a hack. Actually, no. I am one. I've been "drawing" for most of my life, but usually with huge gaps in between my artistic periods. When I was a kid, I used to get frustrated with my art, because I wasn't as good as my friends and I was embarrassed to show it off. When I drew something and it didn't come out right, I'd erase it and try again, and again, and again, until I had ruined the entire piece out of frustration before ultimately giving up.

And then the internet happened. My art wasn't any better digitally as it was on paper, so I never really bothered with it. But about 7 years ago, I ended up trying my hand at art edits because of 4chan. I'd see a piece of art, something would bug the everloving shit out of me, and I could just open up photoshop and fix it. And since layers are a thing, I never had to worry about ruining things. If I didn't like what I did, I deleted the layer and tried again until I got it right. Ultimately, I moved on from just minor edits to full on photobashing, which led to my current state of self hatred.

I still couldn't draw well, but I could edit. And that led me to the aformentioned photobashing. I'd see a picture I liked, but knew flat out tracing it was just scummy. So instead, I'd take that picture, then take other parts from other pictures that I liked, and would end up with a horrible mess of things that I could then draw over in photoshop to make a "new" piece of art. But it never made me happy, because I knew that it wasn't my talent. I hadn't progressed at all. I'm just constantly regurgitating other peoples works and passing it off as my own, and I hate myself for it. I've had people tell me that my stuff is great and that as long as it's not a direct trace, it's fine! But I know it's not.

So now due to a massive spell of depression, I've ended up deleting pretty much everything I've touched these past seven years because it just makes me feel like an even bigger shitlord and isn't helping my state of mind at all. I know I need to start over from the beginning, but I don't know how I can get past the hurdle of getting hung up on trying to correct my mistakes. I'll start out doing the basics, see something I hate, then autistically nitpick and make it worse until I give up out of frustration. I'm also afraid of how used i've gotten to my current method of making art. I get gratification from what I do because it's hard for me to fail. I want to change, but at the same time, I don't.

As it is right now, my desire to change is overwhelmingly strong, and I'm willing to give it a solid effort, but I just don't know how to deal with the massive roadblock of getting caught up on my mistakes. If I do, I feel like I'll end up back where I started in a place that's near impossible for me to fail from.

What do I do?