Will I Ever Stop Worrying About What Others Think?

I posted this over on the anxiety board - thought I'd post it here too...

Ever since elementary school, I've been worrying about what others think of me. I can clearly remember my grade school self worrying what the other kids would think of my outfit, my glasses, my oral report, my lunch, my abilities in P.E., what I was reading, the brand of my backpack, my mother's car, etc. and other silly little things I should have had enough confidence not to care about. I went through middle school the same, high school, and college. And college was where it really blew up. Social anxiety took its hold. It was so hard to make friends and be confident. I transferring schools 3 times before I finally enrolled the school where my high school friends were to have a "built-in" set of friends. My last year of college I found the strength to go to therapy and started taking Lexapro and address my anxiety.

Things got better in my 20s....a little. I still agonized sometimes as a working woman, but I learned strategies for recognizing when I was agonizing over things that don't matter and letting my mind run away from me.

Now here I am, 31 years old, and I've boomeranged. I'm a first-time mother of a beautiful, sweet, smart and happy, giggly, angel of a baby girl and all I can sit here and do is worry about what people think of my parenting! When everything should be about her. It's like this complex of excessive worry over getting approval from others about my decisions, my approaches, my ways of doing things, my likes and my dislikes never goes away. It just transforms itself to match whatever situation I'm in personally, whatever stage of life I'm in.

Here's a snapshot of my worries today:
- P, my daughter, will never wean off the bottle (she hates her sippy cup right now) and will be drinking bottles even when she's 10.
- P will never sleep through the night and I'm going to have to resort to the utterly cruel (in my opinion) full extinction method of cry-it-out. I do NOT want to do that.
- My husband and I will never sleep alone again, just the two of us. Because P eventually ends up in bed with us co-sleeping, just so we can all get some precious sleep.
-P will never really warm up to table foods (nothing I offer her seems appetizing to her) and we'll be drinking bottles and eating purees through elementary school or until she's 10 (see first worry)
- P will be maladjusted as a child because her mommy goes in and out of bouts of depression and heightened anxiety (even though I do my absolute best to hide my bad times from her and my husband)
- I'll make every parenting mistake in the book.
- Everyone will just judge, judge, judge me.

In reality, P is doing great. Her development is on perfect track. And even if it wasn't, I logically understand that babies develop in their own time. They are individuals. They learn milestones and do new things when they are ready. You cannot be a slave to what people think. Who cares? I logically know this in my brain. But my default pattern of thinking tells me to worry worry worry. I feel like my pattern of worrying about everything, including how other people view my choices and ways of doing things is just going to continue as I move through life. It's agonizing. I'll probably be in a nursing home when I'm 90 worrying about what everybody else is thinking of little old me!

Thanks for listening. Any words of wisdom? Help.

I n a word no, you will never stop worrying, i will worry every day about nothing and every thing, i'am 50 this year, i worry more now than i did 20 years ago, no one is really judging you , it's because you feel you should be judged by what happend in your past, you my girl need to get your mojo back , i mean all you need is a little more confidance and reasurrence, i feel for you , try each day a little time out for your self, hot soak in the bath or a walk alone ect, as for your little one , i can see that your doing a good job, get a baby sitter for a couple of hours so you & hubby can have some "together time"
hope every goes well for each day that comes,
gismo x

Maybe you should try therapy again, since it helped the first time. I'm a chronic worrier too. I spent all my time worrying something was going to happen to my child so I was very controling. Tried my best to let her go and do things but meanwhile i spent the whole time worrying. I learned how to talk back to myself and reassure myself that all would be well. My daughter is now 38 and I still worry about her, especially if she is traveling. When I'm not worrying about her I'm worrying about something else. The anxiety is awful. Thankfully, I'm on meds that help.
Gayle

I guess having children is one of the hardest things to do, we all worry about our families. no matter what age!!! I am on meds too, for several different things, which makes it even harder to cope but they do sometimes make me feel stable, especially when i don't realize it.

Thanks all I have been thinking a lot about trying therapy again. I think it would help. Gayle, I like your strategy of talking back to yourself and reassuring yourself. In my past therapy sessions, we worked a lot on my pattern or negative self-talk. I'm afraid I've been falling back into my old ways there too. Time to be nice to myself again.