Caring what people think of you---warning: pensive and deep!

So, I was thinking about how/when I started caring so much what other people think of me (looks, my work, personality, if I'm a good mum/person/friend)...some people, my husband being one, don't really care what most people think of them. They only care what the people who they respect/admire/like think of them. I, on the other hand, have in the past been obsessed by what someone who I actually disliked thought of me. It gave that person an awful lot of power over me-- they knew their sneering glances and rude ignoring was affecting me and enjoyed knocking my confidence. As this was a work situation, it was daily. Tough.

I was thinking how now, I am learning (in the infancy stages) to not actually give that power to people who mean nothing to me and whose opinion of me shouldn't matter. I still care what my friends/family/some colleagues think of me but I'd like to get to a stage where my *perceived* idea of what they think of me (usually negative) doesn't lead me to question myself and doubt my actions. Mostly, this takes place in the replaying of every conversation, etc. It was very very bad a few years ago when I had major depression.

I just had those thoughts today and I wondered how others deal with the issue of what people think of them (weight/size or otherwise)...

God I know how you feel
My problems have been the feeling of being liked more than loved. I'm intuitive, I know when someone takes a dislike to me. Me? I give everyone the same treatment because I love to make people feel happy. There is no greater sense of feeling liked and happy.
The job I have carries a public profile and believe me that comes with a heavy burden. There are public blogs designed to "smack" a targetted individual and I get my fair share of it and not just for my weight... Which is just as bad.
Coming here is a lovely safe haven for me cos none of you judge...., you all
Listen zz

rumbly-tums said:

God I know how you feel
My problems have been the feeling of being liked more than loved. I'm intuitive, I know when someone takes a dislike to me. Me? I give everyone the same treatment because I love to make people feel happy. There is no greater sense of feeling liked and happy.
The job I have carries a public profile and believe me that comes with a heavy burden. There are public blogs designed to "smack" a targetted individual and I get my fair share of it and not just for my weight... Which is just as bad.
Coming here is a lovely safe haven for me cos none of you judge...., you all
Listen zz

Click to expand...

Sometimes, I think it would be easier to be a bit oblivious to the vibe from others. People like that have the benefit of taking what people say at face value and not reading too much into the slightest action.

I have kind of a public profile element to my job and it's very overwhelming at times, too...I've pulled back a lot from that side of my work because of my weight.

I also find it very welcoming and accepting here and it's very helpful as I have a hard time talking to real life folks about weight issues as they really just don't 'get it' the way ye all do!

Its mad isn't it - I can't remember a time when i wasn't aware (and worried about0` what people thought of me. I would love to just care about what people who mattered to me thought and sod everyone else but I can't.

I think some of it comes from us having bad boundaries about what we tolerate. We get into the habit of trying to "fix" situations wiht people that we really should just walk away from (because their actions have made it more than clear that they are assclowns). But instead we overcompensate because we take total responsibility for the situation and don't remove ourselves emotionally and/or physically from the situation (or even defend ourselves by saying "I find it really disrespectful when you do x, please be aware of your tone" . And that kind of then becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy because we are sending out the message that no matter how badly we are treated we are willing to take more so the person thinks "well they don't care about themselves so why should I?"

Over the last 9 months I've been looking this boundaries issue and I have shed some "friends" from my phone book as I realised we weren't really friends and the relationship was doing me more harm than good because essentially I was disrespecting myself.

My therapist said something the other day that resonated; in any relationship (friend, partner, family, colleague) you only get one sweeping brush and that is too keep your own side of the relationship street clean via rigourous self honesty and use boundaries and values that protect you from harm. You cannot keep the other side of the street clean; that is for the other person to do ... and if they do not engage in their own rigourous self honesty then their interactions are always going to have negative aspects/undertones.

Part of my journey regarding relationships has been helped by www.baggagereclaim.com which I initially discovered when trying to get over my ex however the core of her advice is transferrable to any relationship.