does anyone else get really uncomfortable when having to do stuff in front of other people? like even normal things like writing or something? iâm just so used to screwing things up because of my inattention problems that iâd rather be by myself when it happens again u know
Ok but no joke this is literally part of what makes my daily life so hard, if someone else is in the room and itâs not someone Iâm like ten thousand percent comfortable with then Iâll feel like theyâre watching every little thing I do and thinking about what a screw up I am like to the point that even just cooking around my family is so stressful
This is pretty typical of people whoâve been criticized a lot as children, especially by relatives. It gives us a kind of âperformance anxietyâ as soon as anyone watches us do anything.
Like, I share the reaction to being watched while I cook too, and thatâs because I was always criticized while I cooked as a kid and teenager, and if my own mother is around while I cook , to this day, I get anxious and wish she would go away because Iâm always anticipating criticism about how I do anything and everything in the kitchen.
When I was a kid, my father got so mad at me because of how I was passing the vacuum that he literally ripped it out of my hands and very aggressively swung it around while hissing at me :ââNo, not like that, like this! IN. STRAIGHT. LINES.ââ And since I had always known that he has a volatile temper, this sort of thing was terrifying, because I had no idea if he would get even more aggressiveâŚ
Its a survival tactic to want to avoid being watched, because it triggers our instinctual fear of being seen or watched by predators in the wild that our ancestors learned the hard way. And our brains react to being watched by other people the same way it reacts to being watched by a dangerous animal.
