Ruby, a quick word of advice and I'm out of here.
First of all, don't listen to all these people saying 'you're beyond help' or telling you (more like shouting at you) to heed their advice. They're saying that first and foremost to validate their own personalities (notice how they're all commending each other for giving such good, such noble advice, to the point that the content of that advice becomes literally unimportant to them, and that this thread becomes a somewhat frightful vehicle for their egos?). Secondly, and if I were to guess I would say not intentionally, they're doing it to keep you down. These are the hallmarks of bad advice. But there are things you can learn from this:
A) The things they are saying are born of fundamental ignorance. They were asked to give advice, and either they can't grasp how what they're saying is received by the one who asked them for it, or they can grasp it, and they are imbeciles, because there is nothing more pointless than purposefully giving bad advice--it would not only not benefit you as the advice seeker, but would also constitute a complete waste of time for the advice giver. I'm going to give these people the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are simply ignorant, and not imbeciles.
B) That almost choral voice you hear them shouting in, claiming that 'you aren't worth the time', is actually of an intimately related nature to the voice inside your own head that has fallen into the habit of telling you more or less the same thing. In other words, that is not YOUR voice, but rather a voice of delusion, which all humans are familiar with. The fact that you can identify these people's apparent desire to 'make you listen' for its tactical resemblance to how your own thoughts operate in times of mental stress should send a flag waving in your head.
C) This delusional voice cannot be fought head-on, for the reason that the very impulse to 'fight oneself' is precisely where it is drawn to intervene into assuming control of your mental faculties.
As for some strategies related to C), I have a few that work for me if I find I'm about to enter (or find I am already in) stress mode. The first is to visualize that my person doesn't actually 'mean' anything. I usually do this when I'm in a big crowd of people. When you do this, you will see, say if you're dancing and someone is looking at you, how people will try to 'size you up' even when you give absolutely zero importance to your own presence. Don't fling this pointless nosiness in their face, rather, absorb it with understanding, and let yourself sink further into your dance or whatever it is that gives you release. Second, if I ever feel I am acting purely out of habit around someone, nine times out of ten it will be accompanied by a certain fear, usually the fear of making eye contact or of saying something out of line, and when I realize it, I will purposely address precisely the thing that I feel averse to doing. In other words, I face those fears when I see that that's what they are: fears. Nine times out of ten, I'll crack through that habitual way of holding myself in another's presence, and I will find I am ready to engage more honestly with them. Here I make a point to show them: I am ready to engage creatively, because honestly, they probably won't be aware of it the instant it occurs in your mind, and besides, they are probably busy dealing in their own heads with their own habitual tendencies and concerns over appearance.
Alright, that's all I've got to say. Good luck on your journey through life, may you always keep sight of that part of you that 'deals not in words, trafficks not with dreams, and is untouched by time, by joys, by adversities.'
