obsessed with what others think of me and my life

[katie82]

hello all! my title pretty much sums it up- i am obsessed with what others think of me, my life, my relationships, my career, etc. WHY?? its become a huge problem in my life

 

the main thing i think is ridiculous is that i always worry about people liking my boyfriend or what people think about my relationship. i think this stems from when i was in college and had a real loser boyfriend that my friends hated. having to choose between my friends and my boyfriend was MISERABLE and made me really depressed. it was such an issue for me that now, i am dating a really great guy but totally paranoid and always worrying that someone wont like him for some reason (no one has ever said anything bad about him!). i constantly overanalyze our relationship and look for any possible flaw and try to fix it, trying to make it perfect- and whats even weirder, trying to give off the IMAGE of perfection to others

 

i also worry alot at work- i hate making presentations in front of others in case i make a mistake- when i say something wrong all i do is obsess about it for hours and think about how others must think im really stupid or something

 

i obsess about how i look- i constantly feel bad about my body and am always looking in the mirror at things i feel like others are noticing- does my hair look frizzy? is my skin ok? does my butt look big?

 

anyone else feel like this all the time? its really taking a toll on me. i feel like i could be much happier in life if i didnt do this to myself.....

 

thanks everyone

katie

[melodymatters]

Classic perfectionist, people pleasing behavour. I was VERY guilty of this in my 20's. At 40 I have realxed SO much in SO many areas, but yet, stupid things still trip me up. Probably like alcoholism or anorexia, this will be something to struggle with throughout life.

 

Just try to remember you have NO idea what goes on behind closed doors, and other people, their jobs, relationships etc, are as likely as messed up or MORE so than yours. Accepting that we are ALL losers, and ALL winners ( read : human), in different ways at different times is some comfort.

[Ocean-Blue]

hello all! my title pretty much sums it up- i am obsessed with what others think of me, my life, my relationships, my career, etc. WHY?? its become a huge problem in my life

 

the main thing i think is ridiculous is that i always worry about people liking my boyfriend or what people think about my relationship. i think this stems from when i was in college and had a real loser boyfriend that my friends hated. having to choose between my friends and my boyfriend was MISERABLE and made me really depressed. it was such an issue for me that now, i am dating a really great guy but totally paranoid and always worrying that someone wont like him for some reason (no one has ever said anything bad about him!). i constantly overanalyze our relationship and look for any possible flaw and try to fix it, trying to make it perfect- and whats even weirder, trying to give off the IMAGE of perfection to others

 

i also worry alot at work- i hate making presentations in front of others in case i make a mistake- when i say something wrong all i do is obsess about it for hours and think about how others must think im really stupid or something

 

i obsess about how i look- i constantly feel bad about my body and am always looking in the mirror at things i feel like others are noticing- does my hair look frizzy? is my skin ok? does my butt look big?

 

anyone else feel like this all the time? its really taking a toll on me. i feel like i could be much happier in life if i didnt do this to myself.....

 

thanks everyone

katie

 

katie, I can totally identify with some of the things you said.

 

I find myself constantly worrying about how others perceive me (to a point where I obsess about it sometimes). Thankfully, this very negative tendency has gotten better over the years. I was not always like this...

 

Because I've always been outspoken, etc. I had the tendency to rub people the wrong way (and ended up being the one people didn't like). This led me to become super paranoid (if I was walking down the halls, I'd think people were talking about me, etc). It really does get annoying after a while (because you focus so much of your energy on unnecessary worrying).

 

I try not to care as much about such things - and I've found that people are more receptive to my personality (perhaps I was giving off weird vibes before?).

 

That said, I'm still struggling with this is some ways. I want to improve and get to a point where I am happy with myself and not care about what others say (or what I think they may be saying or thinking about my life).

[shoesies05]

Hun,

I think you should probably go to counseling for this. It's not good because if you constantly are worrying about what people think of you you're just going to ware yourself out.

 

Plus, seeking perfection is only going to set you up for hurt.

 

Or try new things where you cant be perfect, where you are forced to be in front of people over and over again and put your pride to the side and mess up to get good at whatever it is. Plus, it will show you that others aren't perfect and are going through the same learning process as you and that people arent constantly thinking bad of you.

[SuperHands]

I'm totally the same. Always looking for acceptance from people and fearing that people think i'm and idiot or something. Unfortunately it's the way we are designed.

 

However, it's something that our mind does and we all know that our minds can be changed. I'm looking into NLP techniques to try and change the way i think and view the world. I've already had some good progress already so I am hopeful it will work.

 

I would suggest trying to do the same thing. Get a book and focus on that. I've been doing that every night since i got it and it's really helping.