Paranoid fear of uploading my photo

[Reena]

I want to get over my fear of being in public. I have social anxiety and just being around people makes me extremely uncomfortable.

 

Today I was talking to a friend/relative and they said that there's nothing to worry about uploading my own photo. 

 

So I finally after a lot of hesitation I did it. 

 

How to get over this paranoid fear that people will judge my appearance? 

 

Thanks. Below is me. 

 

 

 

Edited February 15, 2023 by Cupcake

[Serenity]

I struggle with a deep sense of shame/unworthiness, which manifest in certain context also socially.

 

What I have noticed about shame in myself and in other is that it's rooted in a deep rooted fear of unworthiness, which then influence our thoughts and actions in disabling ways. It makes us want to disappear and not been seen so we do our best to not take space. And so we limit ourselves.

 

In the recent years, I have asked a lot of my friends about what they are ashamed about. And I have talked to my friends about my own struggle. And what stroke me was that no one ever thought that the feeling of shame that person had integrated was objectively justified.

 

For instance, I have a lot of gay friends, and most of my gay friends had strong difficulties coming out. They felt terrible about their sexual orientation, and had this strong sensation that something was wrong with them as a result of it. And I don't say that there aren't any valid reasons why someone would feel that way, because there is still a lot of homophobia. Growing up, they all integrated a cultural negative gaze, which was sometimes worsen by the particular environment they grew up in (ex: church based education). And that's traumatic on its own and .

 

But fundamentally, there is no reasons to be ashamed to be gay. It's just that there is an emotional wound there caused by a certain perspective/narrative that has been integrated. So the emotional wound needs to be healed and the perspective need to be recontextualized and seen as untrue.

 

I was talking to a friend of mine a few months ago, and he was telling me about how one of his best friend was gay since ever, and never managed to come forward with it. And what stroke us is that nobody would have given a second thought about it, because they both live in a country were being gay is totally part of the landscape as of 2023. So this man was just living in an emotional prison of his own making.

 

So I suggest you to work on your underlying feeling of unworthiness, because this is really what is generating the paranoia.

[MetaSage]

No big deal, that's that.

[Phil]

15 hours ago, Cupcake said:

How to get over this paranoid fear that people will judge my appearance? 

Fear is guidance, not something to get over. Fear is guidance for the thought ‘This I am appearing as, but that I am not’. 

Therein fear is reassurance you’re already whole, complete, fulfilled perfection.

Paranoia is essentially a secondary belief, that the fear directly felt, is somehow coming from outside, from someone or somewhere else, from ‘that’. 

The “fear” is actually unconditional love. You. Already what’s sought. 

To allow the fear to be fully felt, fully received, is to allow self-realization. 

 

As judgement goes, it can be very clarifying to recognize what you can and can’t control, and what you are and aren’t feeling therein.