Tackling My Anxiety and Fear of Judgement

I want to explain a little more about the fear of judgement I mentioned in my first and second blog posts. It is the source of much of my anxiety.

I fear all judgement. I guess a better description would be to say I fear attention.

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I’m sure most people hate being judged negatively and that’s easy to understand. It’s hating to be judged positively that seems more unusual. For example, if people ask what I do I say I work in finance administration. In fact, I manage a team of finance administrators but I feel uncomfortable admitting it. I also feel uncomfortable if people find out I live in a four-bedroom house. I think because my own opinion of myself is low I want others vision of me to match mine. I don’t want them to think I’m more successful than I consider myself and certainly wouldn’t want anyone to think I was show off or something special.

My fear was first recognised by my therapist, about 18 months ago, I never noticed it myself as it was such an integral part of who I was. Ever since he helped me see what an issue it was for me I have become aware of how many areas of my life it’s affecting. It sounds like a cliché but having first recognised it as a problem I was then able to start taking steps to tackle it.

At the start of my therapy I began to think I had so many issues I was beyond help. As well as the depression, there were all the ways in which anxiety crippled me. I was an anxious driver, ridiculously so. I avoided certain social situations. I had many issues with my appearance. I struggled to form friendships. I couldn’t so much as make eye contact with a man I didn’t know, and I don’t mean romantically. I struggled to go into beauty salons. I would often panic in shops, especially clothes shops, some of them I couldn’t go into at all. Basically, I completely lacked confidence and constantly felt inadequate and often foolish. Whilst I’m not keen on labels, giving most of my problems one name ‘fear of judgement’ was a revelation and once I only had one problem to face it seemed so much more likely I could deal with it.

The therapist said to think of my fears each as a branch of a tree with the fear of judgement being the trunk. Although I still had many branches to tackle at least it was only one tree.

So why would someone who fears attention write a blog?! Whilst I have made much progress and finished the therapy I still have a long way to go. I’ve tried for years to blend in and go unnoticed to always appear ok and on top of things, it’s damn exhausting. So, I’m trying the exact opposite, I’ll be open and share my life and in doing so I imagine the huge weight of pressure I’ve put upon myself will be lifted and I can live a more free and easy life.

I’m certainly enjoying blog writing. In the 10 days since starting this blog I have felt the most positive and excited I have in years. It feels like I’m taking control back and that feels so good. As I wrote this I just got the strangest sense of Deja vu. I swear I’ve dreamt this but only just remembered. Maybe writing this blog is part of my path, my destiny.

I can’t in one post explain everything about my fear. My plan is to write several posts each about one of the various areas of my life this has affected and I can explain my progress.

I also want to talk about my CFS, my quest to be healthier and my general life. I won’t be a blogger with a niche!

I have experienced countless things in my life and I want to share many of them with you. I also want to share the current and more fun stuff. If this helps or inspires anyone I would be so honoured. Another cliché: even if I only help one person this will all be worth it. In this case the one person may be me.

Thank you for reading

Kelly x

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