First: You're not alone as you can see from all of these comments. That doesn't mean it doesn't suck and feel hopeless at times. Acknowledge it and ask "What can I do?"

Second: Give yourself credit for taking these steps to improve. I personally struggle with this and have to verbally say "I did x". I immediately have a negative voice say it's not enough, etc and I have to say "Thanks, what can I do next?" It feels silly but sometimes it's enough to prevent the reactionary thought train that follows if I do nothing.

Third: Be careful with the stories you tell yourself. There's a thin line between being realistic and just wallowing. You don't seem to be doing that and using "I feel..." language is a nice way to separate yourself from your thoughts/feelings. Again, it feels silly, but the way we speak has an effect on how we see ourselves.

So, you are capable of inspiring confidence, but you struggle with it. You inspired confidence in me to create an HN account to reply to this, so... put that in your evidence locker for when you doubt that.

And... I feel you on the interviews. My worst interview performance was a twofer: I scheduled the interview and didn't realize it was a pair programming session. We had to reschedule.

For the next session, already embarrassed, I hop on the call (on my phone, in Starbucks, without headphones because they died) and proceed to forget javascript array basics for 30 minutes. I literally only wrote 1 line of code and I'm pretty sure the guy worked through the interview.

What's hilarious is that right after the call the answer popped into my head. I had 6 years of experience at this point.

I sat down and listed everything that went wrong and why. It all boiled down to practice and preparation. Have everything charged. Have a spot you're comfortable in if possible. Double check what you need to bring, etc.

For practice, I literally took as many interviews as I could get as long as they were jobs I was actually interested in. This built some rejection resilience and highlighted specific things I needed to practice.

It's not perfect. I still freak out. I went on meds after that experience which helped me build up some habits and more resilience and I eventually came off the meds. I eventually got a job, became a manager, got laid off, and then got to my current gig as a founding engineer.

I journal, meditate, and workout as close to everyday as I can get, and when I miss, I just start again and write about how annoying my shaming inner voice can be. This (+gratitude for literally whatever good I can find in the day) habit has helped me a lot.

My current struggle is building things -- just getting started much less "completing". I've had a raspberry pi I've been meaning to install docker on for a month now so I'm going to go do that now. I'm 40. I'm an adult no?

Cut yourself some slack. Be kind. Prep. Practice. Get outside. Lift heavy things. You're moving the right direction. Check back in and let us know your progress.