You know, its in a way weird (or maybe not) but I've found that dealing with this SSM issue can give you some very profound insights - intellectual and spiritual ideas that can really help in other areas of one's life. A "silver lining" I suppose.
One thing which I had to do in my own situation was to make "emotional reaction time" for myself - to mentally detach in situations (like rejection or outside stresses) that had the effect of pushing my "SSM", "Woe is me" and "Depression" buttons. I eventually got to realise - after long periods of effort - that they were just buttons which I could mentally disconnect.
That was a long time before I read Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning and his idea that "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."
In a similar way, I think what you've described - particularly the tape idea - is what I've recently learned is neuro-linguistic programming (NLP)? Fascinating stuff.
By the way - it looks like you've made GREAT progress in your own situation (in a short period of time). Congrats.
S&A
"A man can be destroyed but not defeated" - from The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway.
Which I take to mean that every man has within him a spirit of relentlessness and optimism. Its already there; he just has to cultivate it.
