Rejection

I don't deal well with rejection, in any situation. I'm not sure when it started, but it's been there as long as I can remember. It's the reason that I'm horrible at fundraising and could never be a salesperson. It's the reason I never ask for help. It's the reason I'd rather sit isolated from a new group than join in before a direct invitation. And I think it's half the reason that the job search process is especially tough for me.
Finding a job is stressful for most anyone. No job means no money means no food/home/anything in our world. But I'm so afraid of being rejected, it's difficult for me to face the whole process. I can mostly handle the application portion - it's the interview and beyond that are harder. The actual rejection conversation is what's most difficult for me - having to face someone who says that I'm not good enough.
It doesn't help that I have such low self-confidence that at least 90% of my self-worth is based entirely on what other people think of me - which is why any negative comment that anyone makes about me tends to send me into a downward spiral for minimally the rest of the day, if not longer. And any rejection sends me the message that I'm not good enough, which in my brain means I'm not worthwhile at all.
My current application/interview process feels worse than any possible rejection I've ever faced before. I'm in the strange position of having worked somewhere for a year and needing to now apply, interview, and compete to have a position again next year. This year I'm a long-term sub, so even though there are two positions open in my department, I have no guarantee of getting one because I'm not currently in a permanent position. The whole possibility of not having a job 3 weeks from now is scary enough. But the level of rejection that would come with that reality is sending my anxiety and depression through the roof.
I've spent the last 8 months working along side the people who will be making the decision about who gets the two open positions. And depending on when a final decision is made, I may still have a couple of weeks working with them before the school year is over. And if I don't get the position, I don't know how I'm going to make it through the rest of the school year. And it's not because I would be super angry or because I feel entitled to the position. It's because I fear the rejection I know I'll feel. I fear the awkwardness of, after a year of others telling me that I'm doing well and that they hope there'll be a place for me next year, it turns out that I'm not good enough, that I'm not wanted. I don't know how I'll face people the rest of the school year. I don't know how I'll trust new people again in my life. (Have I ever mentioned that I already have massive trust issues? Because I definitely do. And I tend to assume the worst of people as a defense mechanism to keep from getting hurt unexpectedly.) And thanks to my badly-wired brain, I can't manage to move past these fears.
It doesn't help that I've faced rejection after a year or two of positive relationships too many times in my life. In elementary school, I wasn't in the same class as my good friends from 2nd through 6th grades. Each of those years I tried to make new friends with people who were in my classes. We would do projects together, have play dates and sleepovers, and by the end of the year it seemed like we were pretty good friends. But when the following school year started, it all disappeared; even when we were in the same class, they would replace me with someone else. Thanks to my junior high years, I was finally able to build a core group of friends who I had some classes with, but in high school I was met with one-year friendships all over again. With the exception of a handful of people, my college friendships were the same way. Even in my three summers working at camp, where I was told I would make deep, lifelong friendships, I'm not even in occasional contact with the people I considered my closest friends during those summers. I've been discarded after a single year so many times - I don't know that I can face it again. I don't know that I can face the rejection.
So now I have a job interview that's less than a week away, and I should be elated that after a year as a long-term sub, I have the opportunity to at least compete to get my position back next year. But I find myself so crippled by the fear of rejection that I just want it to be over. I want to skip to the time when I know whether I get to come back next year. Or if I don't get to come back, I'd like to skip to the end of the school year. I just want to skip to a time when I can start moving past this fear of rejection.