Frightened of making public mistakes and criticism

[Namensandurung]

Feeling a bit delicate at the moment. I have started to realise that behaviours I have are a little strange and I'm not sure how to tackle things.

I am afraid of making mistakes and receiving criticism. I also overthink that people may discuss any mistakes I make, behind my back and not give me a chance to explain. This is impacting on life as it stops me doing things. For example, driving to new areas in case I make a mistake and annoy other drivers. I'm not overly worried about annoying them, I'm worried about them thinking I'm not in control or doing everything correctly and I'm worried about dash cam footage of me making a mistake going online (as I type this I know it sounds irrational but I'm being honest). I avoid progression at work because I am worried about taking on new responsibilities and making a mistake and being talked about negatively.

I am able to be rational for everyone else and can put things into perspective but I seem unable to do this for myself.

I constantly tell my children that it's OK to make mistakes but deep down, I worry that if they do, I will be judged by other parents.

I feel exhausted with it all, I'm not sure what would help. Can anybody relate or offer any advice please. Thank you.

Look at Boris Johnson. Hasn't held him back.
In all seriousness though, I would hazard this is a kind of anxiety. We all have anxious feelings from time to time, but if the fear of failure or censure is stopping you from doing perfectly normal things - then you have a bit of a problem.
Depending on how badly this is affecting your life - you could try and find some talking therapies.
My DD has OCD/intrusive thoughts which is derived from anxiety. One of the techniques she was encouraged to try was exposure - she set goals to do things that her social anxiety was making hard for her. It does help to teach yourself that you can actually do the things you fear without the sky falling in. She has always found putting her hand up in class very hard, very fearful of being wrong/laughed at. She's actually very clever and rarely wrong but this was really holding her back. So, she's been making a conscious effort to do this and it's been hard and painful at times! We had a parents evening recently and one of her teachers commented really positively about this and had noted how hard it was, but thanked her and said the class benefitted from her contribution. It was lovely to see how pleased she was.
So, maybe seek some external help and maybe think about ways you could challenge the constraints you put upon yourself.

Thank you for your reply and yes, Boris seems to take it all in his stride. I think I am at the point where I need to see someone. I'm guessing that starts with my GP?

‘ I avoid progression at work because I am worried about taking on new responsibilities and making a mistake and being talked about negatively.’

Me in a nutshell plus many of the other things you’ve mentioned. For example sometimes I’ll read an email over and over looking for ways it could be misconstrued and get me into trouble. Then I’ll write it but be too scared to send it. I think about work I’ve done years ago and panic I’ve made a mistake.

I only my realised how ingrained my fear of mistakes was when I saw a career coach. She was trying to rationalise it for me by saying ‘ok you worry about making mistakes but have you actually made any major ones that had the horrible impact you imagine?’. The answer to that is of course no, I haven’t made any major mistakes so of course my fear is irrational. But I’m my mind I was actually thinking ‘I must have made loads of mistakes but it’s just nobody has found out about them yet’. So I’m in at the deep end with this fear and am having some therapy as it’s really holding me back.

One thing I’ve been learning to do is to catch myself when I have those thoughts and try to rationalise it. So when you worry about making a mistake driving, ask yourself for evidence if it’s rational. Do you make lots of mistakes driving? Probably not. Then if you did make a mistake what would happen? Another driver get annoyed with you? Probably but what is the impact of that? Virtually none. This has all been from CBT and I found it very helpful.

I think your GP is probably a good place to start, but it might be worth just checking to see if you self-refer.
Good luck! I know it's hard work from seeing my DD but there are techniques that can help.

Really feel for you. Ot sounds like a form of OCD?

I think the GP would be a good start. Best wishes.

You might benefit from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy:

www.nhs.uk/mental-health/talking-therapies-medicine-treatments/talking-therapies-and-counselling/cognitive-behavioural-therapy-cbt/overview/

Sorry to hear you also struggle with this kind of anxiety and fear of others judgement and reaction. I can absolutely understand this and am the same…though I try very hard not to let it stop me doing things or progressing at work, but that just means I now have a constant and hidden anxiety all the time and at it’s worst (comes and goes) I can have trouble sleeping and feel very overwhelmed.

I listened to a Brene Brown podcast the other day when she was talking about ‘perfectionism is a particularly destructive defence mechanism against shame’ which really struck a chord with me and helped me start to understand where this has come from for me. It’s the idea that ‘if only I can be perfect I’ll be accepted and everything will be alright’ which stems from a lot of experiences from childhood. I can find the actual podcast if that would be helpful.

@Namensandurung

Thank you for your reply and yes, Boris seems to take it all in his stride. I think I am at the point where I need to see someone. I'm guessing that starts with my GP?

For someone who is making mistake after mistake and is coming under fire from all angles, he is completely taking it in his stride. The man has the hide of a rhino. I must admit, I'm pretty impressed with his pig headed-ness if nothing else!

At the end of the day, everyone makes mistakes. We all fuck up. Some of us more than others. Also, some people will always judge so it is impossible to please everyone. You just need to do things, give them your best shot and don't expect them to be perfect.

What are you putting off today? Make a start. Do anything. Just get on with it. If you can be brave enough to start then you'll gain momentum and things will start to feel easier.

Don't think about it. Just start.

Making mistakes is essential to learning and learning is essential to progression.
Obviously easier to say than do. But I definitely think CBT would help you believe it.
Best of luck!

Have a look at 'growth mindset' - it's a popular concept at the moment. They're big on this at DD's high school.
It's a way to reframe mistakes as part of learning.

Thank you all so much. I've quickly skimmed through your replies and will read them properly later. I have thought about CBT before but wasn't sure how useful it would be for the issues I have. Sounds like it's worth exploring a little more. Thank you all for your replies and being so kind.

You could try a book or two about CBT first.

I have an earlier version of this book by Gillian Butler which I found useful, although it relates to social anxiety which might not be your exact problem:
www.amazon.co.uk/Overcoming-Social-Anxiety-Shyness-2nd/dp/1472120434/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&qid&sr

It's one of a series in the 'Overcoming' range of books:
overcoming.co.uk/693/The-Overcoming-Series

They also have a book on Anxiety, and also Paranoid and Suspicious Thoughts.

www.amazon.co.uk/Overcoming-Anxiety-Books-Prescription-Title/dp/1849018782/ref=monarch_sidesheet?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

www.amazon.co.uk/Overcoming-Paranoid-Suspicious-Thoughts-Books/dp/1472135946/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&qid&sr

The main thing I learned was that anxiety in certain situations is caused by your subconscious feedback mechanism not working. Instead of doing something, seeing how it went and feeding that experience into how to do it next time, you're just stuck in fear mode.

The exercise I found most useful was to examine your anticipatory anxiety before facing the scary event (scale 1-10, psychological and physical symptoms), do the event, then afterwards review what happened and compare it with your anticipatory anxiety. You'll find that most of the time the things you were fearful of didn't happen, and even if some of them did, you may well have found a way to deal with them (which will also build your confidence).

You need to have these anticipation and review sessions with yourself to learn that your anticipatory anxiety was way out of proportion with the actual outcomes. It's not enough to tell yourself that your anxiety isn't logical, you need to consciously learn it from experience, repeatedly. It's what your subconscious should be doing in the background but isn't. Over time your anxiety should reduce to a proportionate level, which for most normal activities could be zero.

I'd add 'The Feeling Good Handbook' to that www.waterstones.com/book/the-feeling-good-handbook/david-d-burnes/9780452281325 as a CBT book. It's really good at explaining why that 'worst case scenario' that haunts you is actually vanishingly unlikely if you interrogate it. Your feelings are exactly the sort of situation that CBT is for and it can actually work fairly quickly once you put it into action too. Good luck!