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dolorosa_12I think I've finally managed to get on top of all the comments I've received on various posts (and I have to say, having so much activity on Dreamwidth that I'm on the verge of being overwhelmed by comments is a nice problem to have), just in time for this week's open thread.
Today's question comes fromlikeadeuce: give a piece of advice to your younger self.
It's a bit of a cliché, but I truly wish I'd been able to tell my younger self not to fixate so much on what people thought of her, or to at least have a sense of perspective about it. I wish I had been able to make myself understand that every single other teenager in my life at the time was as self-absorbed as I was, and that they were completely oblivious to all the things I felt they were noticing and judging me for. Sadly, I fear that teenage!me would not have believed this advice, and I'm sure I got it from the adults in my life at the time, and didn't believe them. It didn't help that as well as being very self-absorbed, I was a hyper vigilant and hyperaware teeanger who did observe the people around her (and definitely judged them), and just assumed everyone was the same.
So I wish I had been able to give myself that advice, but I'm dubious as to whether it would have been effective. Learning that for the most part people are too wrapped up in their own selves to notice all the things you're embarrassed and fearful about is just one of those lessons that you have to learn the hard way.
What are your answers?
Today's question comes from
likeadeuce: give a piece of advice to your younger self.It's a bit of a cliché, but I truly wish I'd been able to tell my younger self not to fixate so much on what people thought of her, or to at least have a sense of perspective about it. I wish I had been able to make myself understand that every single other teenager in my life at the time was as self-absorbed as I was, and that they were completely oblivious to all the things I felt they were noticing and judging me for. Sadly, I fear that teenage!me would not have believed this advice, and I'm sure I got it from the adults in my life at the time, and didn't believe them. It didn't help that as well as being very self-absorbed, I was a hyper vigilant and hyperaware teeanger who did observe the people around her (and definitely judged them), and just assumed everyone was the same.
So I wish I had been able to give myself that advice, but I'm dubious as to whether it would have been effective. Learning that for the most part people are too wrapped up in their own selves to notice all the things you're embarrassed and fearful about is just one of those lessons that you have to learn the hard way.
What are your answers?
no subject
Date: 2020-09-20 12:32 pm (UTC)I still remember that my group of friends when I was around fourteen — we were a group of four girls who were friendly with people in other groups but sort of kept to ourselves for the most part — made a tentative decision to change where we normally sat during lunchtime, so that we were sitting out on the oval ('oval'=Australian for the grassed sportsground area of the the school), where the popular boys in our year played soccer, and we spent the entire lunch having a massive, convoluted panic about it, because we were so intensely worried that people would notice that we had moved and think ... I don't even know what we were worried they would think. The idea that anyone else would have even noticed we were there (or noticed where we normally sat and think anything other than, 'they must have wanted to sit somewhere else') is just hysterically laughable, but that's what we were like!