Do you believe if people see your perceived flaws...

or see you or can hear you when you are centre of attention that they can only think negatives of you?

Well, this is so simple and something that I know I have not spent enough time addressing and looking into, but I have for far too many years lived believing the above - that if people see my perceived flaws - i.e. I was so insecure about my nose, a speech impediment and even my anxiety/lack of confidence, I believed that people can only judge me one way - negatively. That belief of mine is set in concrete, I have believed it 100%

But, I was looking into this this morning and I was quite amazed really with how fixed and negative and terrible these beliefs were. I have made huge progress in recent times in accepting myself and overcoming lots of issues in relation to SA, I feel I am so close to overcoming SA, but I found I was still very self conscious in some situations because I have these beliefs that if people see my flaws they can only judge me negatively, and I realised that these beliefs have to be addressed because they are so problematic.

I started looking into why do I believe if people see my flaws they will judge me so negatively and be so critical of me? Is it true that if anyone sees my nose they are going to be so critical of me? Afterall when I see people who have 'flaws' in their appearance I never even think about it, I certainly don't stop and stare and think 'Oh my god - that person has a flaw in their appearance, they are so ugly and inadequate'. So how real are these beliefs I have?

I realised that I started thinking this way from my teenage years when I seemed to get so many put downs by fellow kids - they always ridiculed me for my flaws so I started to believe that everyone is like that, but are they? Its hard for someone to believe its not true when they suffered years of put downs, insults and ridicule when people saw flaws in yourself, and then having lived believing this is true so have always been self conscious and anxious when centre of attention because of the fear of being judged negatively by people, but these beliefs that all the self consciousness and fear of being judged negatively is based on what I learnt in my teenage years, but is it true and fair to believe everyone I see is the same as a 15 year old insensitive jerk making fun out of my perceived flaws? Afterall we all have flaws, no one is perfect and don't expect anyone else to be perfect. But it is also true that kids can be the cruelest people and are also the most immature and shallow people. So is it fair to have these beliefs still?

I have been living life for the past 14 years thinking people are always going to be so critical and judge me as ugly, inadequate, not good enough, unworthy, but what is to say this is true? I mean I see people every day with flaws, I don't stare at someone's flaw and start thinking 'oh my god they are so ugly and horrible, they are so inadequate'. So why should anyone think that of me? I know other people see other people with flaws and are not horrible about them or think negative things of them for flaws, so why would they with me?

I just think a huge part of overcoming SA is breaking out of this cycle of thoughts believing people are always going to be so critical of you and think you are inadequate, not good enough, etc when they see you or see your perceived flaws - because if you believe people will judge you negatively and horribly if they see you or your flaws then you are going to be so self conscious, anxious about who can see you and what they are thinking, you are going to be thinking negatively of yourself and that you are not good enough, you are going to believe that you have to hide your flaws or avoid situations where people may see your flaw, because you believe if people do see these flaws in yourself then you will be judged in a way that hurts you like crazy.

I am going to spend some time working on this, I need to change my beliefs here because I realise just how fixed and negative they are, they are so biased and exaggerated, its like I think in a way of the most extreme negative beliefs possible and they cause so many problems. I really do need to change my beliefs so that I am no longer self conscious and thinking so negatively here.

I have actually always said that if I never recieved those years of put downs and name calling, ridicule, etc over my 'perceived flaws' then I would never have suffered SA or lacked in confidence. But those years made me believe that people are so cruel and critical - and I have never challenged these beliefs properly and seen that they are wrong. Well now its time to do so.

Any thoughts?

Hello, Charlie
Obviously you are consciously or unconsciously using Cognitive Therapy to deal with your SP and low self-esteem, you want to change the wrong cognitive tag which was endowed by your childhood environment. The motive is correct, if we can free ourselves from those negative believes, we will surely free ourselves from SP. However, the shortcoming of such therapy is that it applies correct believes to "counter" the negative belives in your mind. Your negative belief is the fruit of your earlier living enviroment, it can never be eradicated forcibly. The correct step is to accept your negative belief first (not only accept your "ugly"nose,but also accept the negative feeling caused by it,like shyness, panic), then experience the life, pursue your dream, do what you like to do or should do, try to make your life busy and interesting, busy and interesting life will automatically change your negative believes, such change is natural and eternal. So the essence of my words is "acceptance" and "experience or practise", which is also the essence of my 2 threads here, "the critical factor in the recovery of SP" and the "the critical factor in the recovery of SP- practise".
Maybe you have read it, maybe you don't believe it, because I had the similar experience with you, so here I will simply tell you my story, to see whether it can help you.
I once thought I was the ugliest guy in the world, i read many psychological books on Congition Change, trying to replace the negative cognition tags with positive tags, such as " I am not as ugly as I imagined","people will not care much about my face" etc, however finally I still cannot make it, sometimes it worked, sometimes it only made me worse, sometimes even I myself didn't believe the positive thoughts from the bottom of my heart, because the picture in my mind of being ridiculed due to my ugly face is too vivid to be wiped out. So, SP is an inveterate habit of thinking, to put it another way, even if you don't believe in ghost at all, you will still feel scared when crossing the cemetary at midnight. why? the answer is conditinal reflex.

So after I failed many times by using this method, I met Mr.Heixi, in his therapy, he also applied Cognitive Therapy, but he used it only as a auxiliary measure. The essence of his therapy is "acceptance" and "practise". "acceptance" here means accept yourself, accept your ugly nose,accept your bad feeling caused by your ugly nose, your shyness and panic, and so on, at that time, I stopped any counter-attack against my negative believes. I just thought "OK, i am the unliest guy in the world, no one will like me",when I thought of this, I felt despair, I didn't want to go to work, I wanted to lock myself at home, I dared not to see people in their eyes, I thought the whole world is laughing at my ugly face.but for all the nagative believes and feeling caused by such negative believes, I didn't counter them as Mr.Heixi told me to do, I remember I slept for a whole day, leave a space,a room in my mind, let all the negative believes and feelings burn there, I was just like a spectator,watching the play all the way along. However, it would not always rain just like it would not always shine, you would not always feel sad just like you would not always feel happy, any bad feeling is a kind of energy, if you let them consume themselves freely, they will finally run out.So when I feel temporarily relaxed, I went out and do what I wish to do, like talking to people and making friends,however it is still not perfect, I was still from time to time haunted by such negative believes when doing everything, however I leave a space in my mind, let them burn there. All the negative thoughts and feelings are like a fire, forcibly repeling them is like fueling them,so leave a space in your mind, let them burn there themselves, without fueling them, they will finally go out themselves. then after about half a year, i gradually felt the power of the negative thoughts and feelings were diminishing,meanwhile the life itself also made me gain much confidence, I natually felt that people didn't care about my face, I was not as ugly as I thought before. Such change is natual and long-lasting. So the key word of Heixi Therapy is "acceptance" and "practise".

I don't know whether you can understand, any question, please ask me here.