Friday open thread: disappearing worries
Nov. 13th, 2020 02:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorosa_12Today's Friday open thread prompt is from likeadeuce: what is one thing in life you've learned to let go of or not worry about?
This is a hard question for me, because I am a champion worrier. Almost every scary thing in life prompts me to leap immediately to the worst conclusion, and then have many sleepless nights.
The one thing that I really worked hard on, though, and which is probably a rare success story in terms of me and worrying, is something that I managed to overcome by my late twenties.
As a child and teenager (and in my early twenties as well), I was hyperaware of how I was viewed by other people, and hyperfocused on perceived negative reactions to me by others. In hindsight, I was probably projecting my own perceptions onto other people: I was hyperaware of how I perceived and reacted to other people (and to be honest was probably really judgemental), I was constantly anxious that every little thing about me was being placed under the microscope and judged by other people. I just assumed that everyone else was walking around intensely scrutinising each other (and me specifically), and that every little flaw in me was obviously going to be extremely obvious and important to other people.
By the time my thirties rolled around, I truly no longer cared. I don't mean that I suddenly started being a rude or cruel person, it's just that all the things I used to freak out about (people thinking I dressed badly or looked ugly or talked too much or talked too little or was too emotional or that I seemed out of place in a particular setting) just suddenly seemed really unimportant.
I think this is a fairly common thing to happen to people, though, especially women. We reach our thirties, and suddenly all that anxious hyperawareness and worry about our own likeability falls away. It's incredibly liberating.
What about you?
likeadeuce: what is one thing in life you've learned to let go of or not worry about?This is a hard question for me, because I am a champion worrier. Almost every scary thing in life prompts me to leap immediately to the worst conclusion, and then have many sleepless nights.
The one thing that I really worked hard on, though, and which is probably a rare success story in terms of me and worrying, is something that I managed to overcome by my late twenties.
As a child and teenager (and in my early twenties as well), I was hyperaware of how I was viewed by other people, and hyperfocused on perceived negative reactions to me by others. In hindsight, I was probably projecting my own perceptions onto other people: I was hyperaware of how I perceived and reacted to other people (and to be honest was probably really judgemental), I was constantly anxious that every little thing about me was being placed under the microscope and judged by other people. I just assumed that everyone else was walking around intensely scrutinising each other (and me specifically), and that every little flaw in me was obviously going to be extremely obvious and important to other people.
By the time my thirties rolled around, I truly no longer cared. I don't mean that I suddenly started being a rude or cruel person, it's just that all the things I used to freak out about (people thinking I dressed badly or looked ugly or talked too much or talked too little or was too emotional or that I seemed out of place in a particular setting) just suddenly seemed really unimportant.
I think this is a fairly common thing to happen to people, though, especially women. We reach our thirties, and suddenly all that anxious hyperawareness and worry about our own likeability falls away. It's incredibly liberating.
What about you?
no subject
Date: 2020-11-15 12:41 pm (UTC)I had exactly the same problem as you with both shops (particularly clothes shops) and the phone. When I was in my early twenties I worked for a newspaper — and my job meant I had to phone people a lot. This used to send me into a frenzy of anxiety, and the only way I could deal with it was to actually write myself a script for each phone conversation, with different questions depending on how my interlocutors answered each preceding question. I'm very glad to have moved beyond that!
Quite frankly, I don't get why society makes getting older out to be such a negative thing, it seems to me that it comes with a lot of pros too. I certainly wouldn't trade my older, more confident, less conscious and anxious self for my younger one!
Same here!