The Spotlight Effect: How to Stop Feeling Self-Conscious

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Thought some of you mind find this interesting and possibly useful

https://effectiviology.com/spotlight-ef ... conscious/

I sure need all the help I can get with this - cheers Ferris.

I must be really comical when I walk down the street sometimes - as soon as I suspect that someone's watching, I get so self-conscious about walking a bit strangely that I lose control of my legs completely and go full-on Monty Python.

I suffer with this. But I think it's come from the way people around me think and the way I've been made to think. Knowing that people have a tendency to gossip and are attentive to social cues and appearances does bring on the spotlight effect in most people. NTs have a paranoid habit of thinking that everyone can hear their conversation in public, when most of the time people aren't even listening to a stranger's conversation, or if they do hear, they immediately forget. I know I do. How strangers I'll never see again live their lives is none of my business.

However, being a regular member on an autism site for 9 and a half years has actually worsened my social anxiety in public places. Many people here have said that NTs can practically read your mind by picking up on the tiniest, microscopic details of your body language and react to it like it's inevitable. Knowing this makes me feel very nervous, and I try to be as discreet as I can when in public. But people here assuming that just because I'm Aspie it means I have less self-awareness than I think I have is very disturbing. It's like I don't know my own self, which is why I have given up on creating or replying to threads about being stared at in public places.
One time I wrote a thread here trying to help myself and others with social anxiety, by explaining that the mind is a very powerful thing and that if I believe I see or hear something I'm afraid of, like people laughing at me when they're not, then it will appear real and my brain will be unable to deny it. Then I explained that it has the same effect when you are home alone and you have the creeps after watching a horror movie. You lock all the doors and windows and put all the lights on, but you are still feel that you are not alone. You imagine you will see a ghostly deformed figure waiting for you at the top of the stairs, so you stay downstairs, then you see something odd in the mirror. You believe these things are happening so much, that you actually see them happen, like a hallucination. It's how powerful your mind can be.
Then a member had to insensitively put "no, people probably DO laugh at you". Then they started explaining that annoying "people are like animals, they react to any kind of threat, and you being an Aspie are a threat because you look weird even if you think you don't, blah blah blah"...

Sorry if that sounds a bit harsh but it's the truth.

Didn't know this had a name. I used to have more difficulty with this, until I started doing a mental exercise where I imagine I'm looking at somebody who has whatever flaw I'm concerned about. Stops you worrying about the small stuff.

I didn't read an article like this either. My own logic was what got me there.

A good method is to pretend everyone sees you naked.

I might not have that quite right.

Gee, thanks for posting this whole thread about me and making everyone stare.

Ferris,
A big thank-you for bringing this issue to our attention!! !! Had no idea there was such a thing, a thing that has been an issue for me since my teens. Reading the article brought such a relief, I can't tell you much. Instead of letting these thoughts jump up, linger, and dictate to me, I can acknowledge what is going on in my head and let the thoughts go. This knowledge is truly liberating for me. Again, I am grateful to you Ferris.