Your self-effacement is not interesting.

[GarlicMistake]

I'm housebound today so have been reading a lot of threads. This is a ThreadAboutThemAll. I'm up to here with "little old me" type comments. If people think you're beautiful, own it. If you're too self-conscious to wear a bikini, do something about your lack of self-love. If someone's taking the piss, come on here for hints on what to say - and then say it.

Putting yourself down is, like shyness, quite selfish. You're prioritising your feelings about yourself over everybody else. I'm all for answering pleas for attention by giving attention, but it gets a bit wearing.

I'm not saying I've never been shy or down on myself. I often still am: I empathise. But, please, for crying out loud, make an effort to act positive about yourself! Or AIBU?

Don't like it? Don't read it.

Or, you know, be gently encouraging in the actual thread, instead of starting a whole new thread to bitch about people.

Ugh, how nasty

Op, you need to fill your life up with something .... Anything

There's a big difference between shyness and self-effacement though, isn't there? Self-effacement seems to be a very British trait - "no, I'm really not that pretty/clever/talented" etc, which more confident nations (Americans? Germans?) don't share. And yes, I can see that it starts to grate after a while. But shyness - that's something else, and something that is universal. The only thing that cured my shyness was the passing of time - as I've got older, I've become far less shy.

Ps your comment to Kittens was really unpleasant.

I'm embarrassed for you.

OP I've been trying to understand your posts because they hit a bit of a nerve with me. In a good way. I'm desperately trying to work my way out of a position where i dont see any answers in my life. I feel the need to challenge myself and Im grateful to a MNers who ever so nicely have been helping me along rather than just saying easy things. (I completely post on here in need of attention )

Anyway, I'm certainly not explaining myself well, and this isn't even what you were getting at so I've given up - but I wanted to thank you for the link to Psychology today. Those articles always get me thinking - in particular two of the posts linked in that article were really helpful to me, about revisioning the past.

I've been reading a lot around victim mentality but it didn't really fit - these articles fit well. Off to read some more.

So thanks, hope you get some feedback on your thread that helps you work through feeling frustrated today!

Myown, you've cheered me up no end with the news that the link struck a helpful chord for you

I'm the one failing to explain myself! I'd better tread very carefully now. Thank you, hassled, brambly and J0ker for getting it. I think you're right, I was/am conflating several different issues.

I agree that the majority of people who make a throwaway self-effacing remark aren't expecting anything other than an equally throwaway "oh nonsense", or words to that effect. Also that depression is a selfish illness.

I'm wondering whether social anxiety's a selfish illness, as well - repeating the point that it's not the person who's selfish but their illness. "They aren't self-absorbed at all, but are totally overwhelmed by what other people think of them, and feeling that they will never be good enough". - It's two different things, isn't it? Feeling that we're never good enough, then projecting that judgement onto other people & feeling overwhelmed by what we assume they're thinking of us. Fact is, other people haven't got that much spare mental energy to spend on judging us. I think (but am not quite sure yet) that this is what I finally grasped after talking to friends, when the woman told me off.

I'm sorry you're not seeing much difference from your counselling yet, Kittens. It is a long bloody haul, and hard work. As long as you're getting "aha moments" with your practitioner, it's probably working ...

Just want to add that I never said or implied everyone should be going round acting all full of themselves & inspirational! It feels odd that so many posters assumed that was what I meant: there's a long distance between someone who keeps putting themselves down and the relentlessly positive person (although they might both be full of self-doubt.)

www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2014/aug/12/robin-williams-suicide-and-depression-are-not-selfish

Here is an article discussing the selfishness of depression and how perpetuating the myth that the sufferer can just 'snap out of it' shows a massive misunderstanding of mental illness.
By passing on the 'helpful' advice of the lady you refer to, you are effectively saying that anyone who has social anxiety or shyness can and should just buck up their ideas or, essentially, snap out of it and stop bringing others down by not being positive about themselves. It's wonderful that despite the adversity you faced, you have managed to build self-confidence. It's a shame that you are still lacking considerably in empathy.

I'm wondering whether social anxiety's a selfish illness

I think the difference is that as a shy/anxious/introverted person, I am constantly judging MYSELF and thinking about the perceived effect I have on others. You, as a confident, enlightened and positive person appear to be judging ME (and others like me) and the effect that I have on you. I don't know if you can call judging yourself self-absorption, but I would venture to say that when you are talking about how someone else's insecurities bring YOU down and don't interest you, that's not exactly selfless either.

I'm wondering whether social anxiety's a selfish illness No, it isn't. It is a mental illness.

The most selfish people I know are also the most smug, self-aggrandising, egocentric, cocky, full-of-their-own-importance people I know, and they are totally lacking in any empathy or concern for the feelings of the people they ride roughshod over. Nor do they seem to have the first idea of what their actions do to others.

So you effectively start a TAAT just to have a pop about people who are genuinely shy/anxious/self conscious?

Well thanks OP - whether you intended to or not, you have made me feel quite bad so well done for that.

Oh and your spouting shite about what can be serious MH issues isn't particularly interesting either. Frankly it's just fucking ignorant

Your OP is akin to telling people with depression, to 'shake themselves out of it'. Yabu. When someone posts, it is a tiny snapshot of their lives. You're basically telling everyone who posts, to pull themselves together. Rather goady OP.

Fact is, other people haven't got that much spare mental energy to spend on judging us

Well, apart from you, it seems. You appear to have quite a lot of spare mental energy to judge.

Oh, and people who were feeling shitty enough to post, you have probably just made them feel about 10 time worse. Well done

Sadly not everyone can be as judgy awesome as you Op but thanks for the pep talk.

YABU!

Life is never one-dimensional. A person is the culmination of all of their experiences and they have an undeniable effect on an individual. Insecurities and self-consciousness can be a manifestation of other difficulties or emotions, which, on the surface, can seem unrelated.

It's not simply a case of 'wanting' to feel better about life or yourself or 'not making the effort'. Sometimes when people put themselves down, it's almost a recognition of the fact they don't feel that they fit in or match up to expectations. Don't judge buy the very limited view you get from one source.

Wow op the compassion is fair flying out of you isn't it?

You are a pound shop Katie Hopkins.

I think you should shut up now OP, you're embarrassing yourself.

What we're you saying about empathy, Garlic?!

YABU.

YABU
My lack of confidence is due to years of EA.

But thanks....nice to know people like you think I just need to stop being so selfish.

I think you worded this very badly GarlicMistake but I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and say YANBU.

Because, yes, there are times I read some threads on here and I just want to give the OP or other posters a hug and a shake and say "You're fucking fine just the way you are, and anyone who makes you feel bad about yourself is a grade A twat."

Part of my reasoning for wanting to do that is because I to have suffered from low self esteem and body image issues, depression, my entire life and I just wish someone had done that too me. Told me I was fine just as I was.

So I kind of get it. I really wish women in our society were taught and encouraged to be more self confident, rather than beaten down by society for our imperfections (especially the physical ones) from the beginning. And it frustrates me to read posts from women who are perfect just the way they are worrying about bikini's or whether their appearance will make it harder for them in life. But I'm NOT frustrated by THEM. I'm frustrated by the society that makes them feel that way.

I think shyness/low self-esteem/social anxiety is complicated, not all driven from the same source, and probably not responsive to the same 'corrections'.

What you said about your own telling off struck one particular chord with me, in that it was something similar that did help me once... mostly because I was so worthless to myself in my own eyes, that it was only raising my awareness of the impact on other people that really gave me a kick to change. When I thought it impacted nobody but me, well that didn't matter then.

However, I believe that only worked because I had reached a certain stage of recovery already, and that if I had been told off when I was really at my lowest, I would have seen it as me even existing was creating a burden for the world and may have wiped out the last remnants of guilt I felt about removing myself permanently.

Also, although I recovered largely from esteem-issues, I still have social anxiety, but it has nothing to do with what I think other people think about me (I assume largely nothing)! It's an instinctive, crawling fear that people who get close to me can/will be dangerous, combined with the fear drummed into me growing up that the world was an evil, malicious place.

In short, I'm glad that what happened helped you, and perhaps it may help some others, but I fear that it would cause more harm than good if applied to everyone suffering their own individual issues.

I can't really see that my mother's social anxiety is all that different from my own fear of heights or my friend's fear of spiders. It is an irrational fear which makes you freeze in certain situations.

Yeah, of course you could argue that it is self absorbed of me to think I am some special little snowflake who thinks I am going to fall off the top of that lighthouse when nobody else has managed it in the 100+ years of its existence. But that presupposes that my fear is based on some kind of rational argument and will go away if only some kindly person will only expose it as illogical. Instead of being a physical thing that starts at the back of my legs and causes me to freeze. I can sometimes steel myself to do things that need to be done: by working on relaxation techniques, or by focusing on something else. But I very much doubt that being told I am selfish and uninteresting would help me very far.

From what I have seen of people suffering intense social anxiety, it's not all that different.

Thanks, fitfatty and Keep :) Yeah, I fretted a lot about this thread last night. I misjudged my OP and am still not 100% clear about what I was trying to say. This - I just want to give the OP or other posters a hug and a shake and say "You're fucking fine just the way you are, and anyone who makes you feel bad about yourself is a grade A twat" - comes closest.

One of the things I feel really strongly about is assertiveness. It should be formally taught in schools. This ties in with a whole bunch of feminist issues, but is not at all limited to women & girls. It breeds confidence and mutual respect, basically.

I should have anticipated that so many would read "Your self effacement is ..." as "You are ...". I'm going to have to forgive myself for not realising that, when people are constantly thinking everyone else judges them negatively, they're naturally going to take such a statement as a blanket criticism of their whole being. There's a conversation to be had about how most people have insecurities & self-doubts, not only the shy/anxious ones - but it isn't going to happen here, because I've already cocked it up.

I still reckon everyone should wear the damn bikini, have the damn talk, and accept the damn compliment!