Hi MysteriousFun,
There is just so much here, it can't be commented on in whole. This is a life time of understanding to be gain slow year after slow year. You want the wisdom of a life time, but must live your life as it is today.

"Why in life when things are going so well, do I feel the need to do something stupid? Why is it that no matter how hard I try, failure creeps into my life? Why is it that every time I fail, I am not the one who feels the effects, but another? How is it fair that my own faults and inadequacies injure those I should be helping?"

That's such a bitch. You feel the guilt, the pain over having hurt someone you care for. I'm guessing the answer may lie in us being forced to love other human beings, all fallible, and imperfect, all condemned to error. You must love them imperfectly, and hurt them; and they must love you imperfectly and hurt you. And the question becomes how do you love someone who is not perfect, who hurts others, who has been wounded.

How do you love another human being. Because it is an issues blended of right and wrong. I think you must love them with tolerance and forgiveness and compassion and courage; and they must love you that way.

For that is the challenge: to love a human being is to love someone who is not perfect, and your love for them will be imperfect. What you have asked is "How do you love." And I think the trick to doing that is to remember which priority is the greatest: the pain or the love. And which reality deserves your attention, the dream or the real person.

"In darkness I sit, staring at the wall, mind racing. Tears running silently down my cheeks, accepting the pain, knowing I deserve it all. Wave after wave, the anguish runs through me, threatening to tear me apart. Who am I? Why is it that everyone else sees the line, the line you can’t cross, the line that keeps you safe? Why is it that I leap over it without a thought, without hesitation? How do I go on? Where do I even begin to make this right?" This is not true.

The only way to avoid pain is not to feel; the only way to avoid pain is to close off love. And the more you do that successfully, paradoxically, the less it works, for the lack of love creates it own pain.

Other people do not see the line. It is only an optical illusion of distance and facade that they appear painless. The truth is that none of us see the line because there is no line. The two are intertwined, like the ying and yang symbol. You go on with courage. The first step in making things right is any step you can take. Here, the intent of the heart guides rather than the knowledge of the mind.

The disgust you mentioned in the last paragraph is not true, but I am not going into that here. But learn to forgive yourself you must. Because when you learn to forgive yourself, you will learn to forgive others. And since we are dealing with human beings, that is an ability that comes in handy very often.

A way to start to forgive yourself may be to remember who you are, a human being. Who did not come with an "Instruction Manual." Who did not receive perfect training in how to live life. Who must learn by trail and error. Who must realize we are all in the same boat.