Am I Just a Bit Rubbish?

This is my first post in ages as I no longer seem to have any time for myself. My baby now flat out refuses to nap. Today, it took an hour and a half of trying to get her to sleep, then she only had 20 minutes. AAAARRRRGH!!! And in that 20 minutes, I have to run round like my bum's on fire trying to do as much as possible before she wakes up.  I have long since given up on the idea of catching a cat nip whilst my baby's napping. If I did, I wouldn't get anything done at all. My baby will only nap on her terms, not when mummy decides that she's been awake for too long and takes the fussing and eye-rubbing as a sign that she's getting tired.
Since I had Isabella, people have been telling me to put her down awake and leave her to go to sleep. It doesn't work at ALL on my baby!
The biggest challenge is getting her to go to sleep and stay asleep. She keeps waking up just for a cuddle. Admittedly, it's quite cute, but when you've been on the go since 9am with no time to just sit down with a coffee, it's bloody exhausting and a wee bit annoying. I am now going to shove a Winnie the Pooh toy that I got for her whilst I was pregnant down my bra, so that tomorrow it smells a bit like me and I can put it in her bed in an effort to stop her from waking up for a cuddle.
Everybody else I know seems to be able to get their baby to sleep no problem, but I've been trying for 3 months to get my baby into a routine. Unfortunately, sometimes she does fall asleep feeding, so I have to either wait 10 minutes until she's completely asleep to put her to bed, or risk waking her up.
I know precisely what people are going to say; "Why don't you wake up baby and put her in her cot to fall asleep by herself?" because she won't bloody fall asleep!!! If and when I can get her to fall asleep in her cot by herself, it takes at least 20 minutes of whinging plus me repeatedly having to go to her and put her dummy back in. Plus, if she is semi-asleep, she finds her cot the most interesting place in the world, starts treating the bars like a jungle gym and is more awake than ever. I don't know whether I'm just really bad at this and need to engage in some behaviour correcting techniques (for both of us), or my baby is just stubborn and wants to do everything on her terms. That would be a bit bloody minded considering she fights sleep even when she's quite clearly over-tired.
I know that I need to start encouraging her to get herself to sleep, but it's just so tough! And it feels like I'm abandoning her. I read a couple of months ago that leaving babies only works because they get so lonely and scared, that they fall asleep to make themselves feel safe. That just really upsets me! I feel that I put her in this big, scary world, so it's my duty to make her feel safe and happy at all times. Then, there's the whole controlled crying method, which I am determined not to do. It can cause "Shut down syndrome". Basically, because crying is babies' way of communicating, if they don't get a response, after time, they stop trying to communicate and it can emotionally and physically effect their development. Would you go through that and having to leave your baby to cry just for the hope of a couple of extra hours kip a night?!
I need to go to sleep as I'm absolutely cream-crackered and Isabella's probably going to wake up for a feed in an hour or two, but I think I've crossed the over-tired threshold, plus it's a bit weird lying in bed with a stuffed bear in my bra. If my next entry is just a load of random letters and words forming absolutely no rhyme or reason, you can safely presume that I have in fact succumbed to sleep-deprivation insanity.
TTFN x