Lost my confidence since covid pandemic

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Pepe
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23 Mar 2022, 5:05 am

Earthbound_Alien wrote:
I want to meet other weird humans


You rang? 8)



Joe90
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24 Mar 2022, 7:07 pm

I do hate my anxiety sometimes. It tells me things that aren't true. For example, if someone is joking with me, my instinct tells me it's a joke but my anxiety says "but what if they meant it?" I try to defeat the anxiety by telling myself that it was definitely a joke due to tone of voice and all those other social clues and sometimes the anxiety loses. Instinct is real.

But the anxiety wins when I'm thinking that people in cars are noticing me and looking at me. When I walk home from work I feel intimidated by all the traffic, because I feel like there are thousands of pairs of eyes going by watching me. I try to tell myself that it's rush hour and that most the drivers are just anxious to get home and aren't noticing some random woman walking along but I still can't stop myself feeling intimidated and socially anxious.
And sometimes when I'm in a car in the passenger seat I feel people walking look in at me, which I hate. I like to look at the scenery, not at people, but even if we're going fast I still feel they manage to make eye contact with me. But I know that the car I'm in is just one of thousands, if not millions, so surely even if I was really deformed or different in some other way pedestrians wouldn't notice when I'm sitting in a moving car, and even if we were going slowly or stopped there's only a small chance they might notice, right?

It's funny how I instinctively know all this yet I still feel like I'm in the spotlight all the time. It's like I feel like I'm always on stage, with a thousand pairs of eyes looking and watching me, even when they're not. I just worry that my face looks different or something even though I don't look any different to the normal human look (I don't have downs syndrome and I'm not deformed).


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Pepe
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24 Mar 2022, 9:10 pm

Joe90 wrote:

But the anxiety wins when I'm thinking that people in cars are noticing me and looking at me.


As long as you don't think the *cars* are looking at you, I think you will be fine. :mrgreen: