I have a crippling fear of judgment and being perceived negatively. Having grown up in a household where mockery was the norm, I believe this has left a lasting mark on my psyche which has resulted in me being afraid to act for fear of mockery, scorn or negative judgment. I feel this has severely stunted my social and romantic life, preventing me from making lasting friendships and relationships. I’m keen to break from this but the gnawing fear holds me back.
I spend my non-working days and hours cooped up in my house and alone. Crucially, this fear does not overcome me when I’m working and in fact I’m comfortable leading large groups of people and meeting new people. I believe this is because when I’m at work I know where I stand and I have a specific objective in mind. However, in my personal life whenever I’ve tried to adopt a similar mindset it has failed. How else can I overcome this fear?
Eleanor says: There are all kinds of things we could murmur to our brains to soothe the fear of being judged. You could point out that almost nobody is looking at you; mostly people are too wrapped up in themselves. You could point out that you already know you’re competent from how you rise to occasions at work; there probably isn’t much to mock about you. You can pat and soothe your brain with evidence that the thing it’s afraid of is very, very unlikely.
Another tack is to say to yourself: you know what, it might happen. People might think you’re wrong, or foolish or cringe. They might laugh about something you did. They might talk about you when you’re not in the room.
Now what?
Would they get to be right, because they think this? Would their view about you matter more than yours? Would them looking down at you somehow mean you have to look up to them? Would it make you want to go to them for advice, or hope you could be more like them?
Or would they still, in the final accounting, be just some guy?
It can be so hard to see that when you’ve grown up without reassurance. Each new possible spurning can feel as existentially frightening as that first rejection from the people who were meant to make you feel safe. But these people aren’t your parents or your superiors. Even your parents weren’t your superiors. Everybody who might mock you is just some guy whose views about you do not matter more than yours.
A phrase popped fully formed into my head once many years ago when I was contorting myself into knots to avoid being judged in a sexist way: “The punishments would be easier to endure than the things we do to avoid them.” You are paying with your life to avoid being mocked. Is it worth that price?
Of course you don’t think it is. Like most of us who’ve ever avoided things for fear of others’ reactions, I know you don’t really rank avoiding mockery as more important than living your life. None of us think it’s worth sacrificing freedom and romance and friendships to guarantee we won’t be made fun of. It’s just that fear creates protective habits and protective habits make us act out of whack with our values. The greater the fear, the greater the habit, the worse the warp.
Therapy can help you get your actions back in line with your judgments about what you actually value.
You have at least one space – work – where fear leaves you alone and you can act unencumbered. A good therapist could help you say more about why that work role feels freeing. They could help you bring that feeling to the rest of life. I know therapy’s expensive and burdensome but it sounds as if you’re really suffering living with this fear. If you’d get professional help for a physical symptom that caused this much suffering, it only makes sense to get professional help for an emotional one.
It took a lot of courage to write this letter. Another kind of courage might be to practise valuing your own judgments of yourself as much as other people’s.
