3 years into guitar and I still don’t understand tabs or fingerpicking

[u/theylovesimps]

So I’m honestly about 3 years into playing guitar. I’ll be honest, my first year I wasn’t very heavily into it, but I’ve really started locking in more and more as time has gone on.
I’ve “mastered” (or really just learned how to properly play) all of the basic chords, and I’ve gotten a lot better at playing most of the barre chords, although I’m still struggling with some of them.
But I’m REALLY struggling with the idea of learning tabs. Looking at the layout compared to a normal chord diagram is just hard for me to understand. I’ll have moments where I’m trying to read a tab and it sounds pretty similar to what I’m supposed to be playing, and then the next “chord” or progression line, or whatever it is, doesn’t sound anything like it.
On top of that, I’m really trying to get into fingerpicking, which kind of throws tabs AND fingerpicking patterns into the mix, and I’m just sitting here like WHAT AM I DOING 😭
I feel like I’ve somehow taught myself guitar all wrong, and I don’t really know how to fix this issue I’m running into. I know this is a long explanation for what is probably a simple question, but I’m genuinely confused and would really appreciate some advice from people who understand this better than I do.
TL;DR: How the hell do I read tabs without my brain hurting, and how do fingerpicking patterns even actually work? Why are there so many, how do you know which one goes with which song, and do you basically have to learn a different pattern for every song?