No matter who you are, no matter how hard you try to make those around you happy, there will always be someone who hates your guts with the very pit of their soul. Despite how stupid they sound to everyone else who has met you, they will insist on despising everything about you.
People like this play on one of my greatest fears: people speaking negatively about me or disliking me.
Years ago I was diagnosed with Social Anxiety Disorder. Granted, I am easily overwhelmed by lots of chaotic noises and quickly develop panic attacks if I’m in a crowd inside an enclosed space but I always figured that was more like a very specific type of claustrophobia. When the psychologist told me I had social anxiety, I went and looked it up to see if this was correct. The diagnostic criteria includes a fear of social situations in which embarrassment, rejection, or judgement are possible. That sounded kinda odd considering not only did I enjoy competitive speech(which is a sport where the very concept is having you abilities to speak in front of a group be JUDGED), I find myself rarely being embarrassed, and I do not fear rejection. I shrugged off these facts and figured that the doctor must know something that I didn’t.
Weeks ago, there was a minor situation in which my feelings were hurt by being kinda ditched by a few friends of mine. I posted a somewhat cryptic Facebook status in which I said something along the lines of, “It’s sad to find out your friends aren’t as good as you thought” and explained to people commenting that I felt that despite how much I go out of my way to be kind and giving to my friends, they never return the kindness to me. The people who hurt my feelings knew that they had made me sad and knew that they inspired the Facebook status and were immediately very angry with me for having posted it. While I was being chewed out, I experienced a hysterical panic attack. I was completely and utterly terrified that these people were bitching about me, talking about how stupid and annoying I was, and it drove me to begging for forgiveness (you know, for posting a status that in no way implied what my friends did or even who I was talking about) and serious contemplation to commit self harm. I hadn’t experienced a panic attack of that magnitude in probably a few years.
That event made me realize something, the diagnosis was actually correct. I have a crippling fear of people finding and complaining about my flaws. I spent years training myself to become a social chameleon so everyone would like me. Now for clarification, I never faked any traits to get people liking me, I just picked and chose what parts of me to show in order to be most agreeable with the company I am keeping.
So my terrible fear of people finding reasons to dislike me has, in a way, turned me into the most agreeable, likable person on Earth. Finding people who dislike me is very confusing and distressing for me considering how much work I put into not giving anyone a reason to dislike me. I’m also feeling a lot of confusion about whether or not this anxiety is a gift or a curse. Any sort of negativity directed at me on a personal level makes me completely panic, but it really does work in turning me into a more likable person. I just tend to be something of a passive-aggressive doormat because I can never tell people “no” and I am unable to confront people with issues they are causing, both of which lower any feelings I have of self-worth.
So. Question time. Do you have any oddly specific anxieties? Would you consider my fear of being disliked socially beneficial, or does it hurt me more than it helps? Is it a bad thing to seek out being liked by everyone you meet?
