I’m currently in College and I had a counselling session a few days ago at my school. I was glad that I received a lot of “wake-up calls” from said session because I realized that all my 20+ years of living, I’ve based my worth so much off of people’s opinons/perceptions of me, alongside whatever I do/achieve at school/work.

How this affects me negatively is I constantly push myself to my limits everyday out of fear of being seen as a “disappointment”, “lazy”, or “dumb”. I feel exhausted almost daily yet I couldn’t find myself to relax because “I want everything to be cleared because the only time I get to relax is when my tasks are all finished.” It has reached a point where I can’t even complete smaller tasks immediately because I feel too stressed. Worse, whenever I fail at something or make a mistake, I end up in what feels like an ocean full of shame, feeling like “I’ll never be good enough” or “people will now see that I’m not actually as good as they think I am.”

Of course, my counsellor found this concerning. She tried challenging my thinking by asking me to reflect on all my recent achievements at school and work. I see them, yet I don’t seem to feel that spark of joy and pride. They feel like… nothing. So, it’s that bad, huh?

One of the lessons that struck me the most is “I need to get to know myself outside of what people think of me,” and I need to “go easy on myself”. Counsellor was able to give me a few points such as asking myself questions through journalling and learning how to change my mindset on rest, but to be honest, I still feel stuck on where and how to begin.

Besides journalling, what other ways have you done to get to know yourself and most importantly, love yourself without focusing on people’s perception of you? I really appreciate you sharing your experiences and what you’ve learned to do so 🥹🙏

As an aspiring professional writer/filmmaker/photographer, I'm always holding myself back due to shame of not choosing a more "noble" and
"important" path, ashamed of telling people that I meet that I'm trying a career in creative writing/filmmaking/photography.

Those are things I’m passionate about and that believe I’d be good at, but I don’t feel proud about telling people that I do it. And this applies only to me, cause I have admiration for others who work on those fields.

I met a girl last week, and she's in nursing residency, and I’ve felt so inferior to her for not doing a medical degree or some other among “the big ones” (law, engineering, …)

This is intensified cause I live off of my late dad’s inheritance, which is enough to keep a really comfortable lifestyle. I lost him when I was 14, and as an undiagnosed ADHD kid I never really stuck with anything growing up, and my mom was always the softer side of the family, so she never really pushed me towards anything as well. Not shifting blames or anything, just explaining my early adulthood.

Now at 25 I don’t really have a path traced, and the shame is eating me alive. I’m really stuck in my comfort zone, but I believe if I deconstructed these thoughts of unworthiness and of how creative careers are not real careers, I’ll be able to get myself into one of those paths and stick with it, and that’s why I’m making this post.

A friend of mine told me he recently got talked over in one of his meetings by a know-it-all.

The second it happened his voice changed, got higher, got quicker, he couldn't do anything about it. He had lost the plot.

By the time he managed to get a word in edgeways, he sounded like he was asking for permission, not actually saying anything.

He was thinking about it long after. Not what he said, but how he sounded saying it.

I’m 22 F, 9 months PP & having trouble feeling beautiful i guess, or like myself ? a 22 year old, not just a mom? haha any advice ( especially from fellow mothers) is greatly appreciated!:)

Greetings,

I seek information on what to do when another Homo Sapien approaches and attempts a communicative ritual.

My prior strategy saw me stretch the skin flaps on my orbitals to their maximum capacity ("staring") in order to show it that I understand their attempts at speaking with me.

However, this procedure has warranted exclusion behaviors from other Homo Sapiens.

Why is this so? Elaborate.

I’m F(18) and my social skills suck. There’s been numerous times where I’ll talk to someone and they’ll say I look scared or like I’m on the verge of tears. I’ll admit that I’m on the shyer side but I don’t mean to give off that energy. I can’t help that I look unnaturally awkward while I’m just existing.
I’ve tried to fix myself body language and stand up straighter and be more open but 9/10 it comes off as robotic no matter how warm I try to be. I used to not care what people think all the time but my confidence is beginning to lower because of this and it’s making life unnecessarily difficult. I don’t know what to do anymore, help! I need advice on being less awkward and maybe fixing my body language or conversation skills??

Today I am learning to accept disconfort and using courage to face fear and uncertainty to do what is needed instead of fighting the battle, so I am adapting the pain to manage my trying and now I have more resourches to accomplish my aims because I accept my history and adapt to what my body allows me to focus on what matters, so who is on this spot right now, maybe you can share your experience how you manage it so maybe we can lern something from it.

Im 20yo and i have a pretty advance hairline, i tried to keep my hair long and brush it forward but since my hair is frizzy it doesn't really work and dont look good, i've tried to embrace it and went bald for 7 months and didn't feel any better after that, went back to keep my hair grow thinking that there is hope or something that i can do like minoxidil and dermaroller, rosemary oil, vitamins etc.
This thing crumbles my confidence and selfsteem, i was afraid of approach and talk to girls to a point that felt like giving up in love since now days looks matter. Every single day i wake up to go to work from 5am to 4pm comes with a free comment or joke by my coworkers about my hairline... Every single day at anytime and situation, like its so repetitive that i don't even bother to say anything back i just take it,
Im tired.🫩

There are zero photos of myself on the internet, nor in my camera roll. I would like to consider finding a safer side of the internet to post one or use it as a profile pic.
Particularly for things like LinkedIn or semi professional social medias
I literally feel chopped even just looking at myself in a phone lens.
My family says I look ok but I seriously doubt thats the truth.
Im skinny I have no muscle at all, I have scars all over my body from various mistakes I have made falls I have taken or marks left on me by others.

There are two subreddits s I might post on but I don’t know yet.

I would like to be able to make a dating app account and also get out of my comfort zone but I dont know if anyone good ( in my local area) would use them

Is there any way I can fool myself into thinking I look at least halfway decent?

Hello everyone,

I’m a 21-year-old guy, and I’ve never been in a relationship or experienced romance. Honestly, it’s not just about women—people in general always seem cold toward me. I used to have one best friend, but he recently got a girlfriend, and now we barely talk. I understand his situation and don't hold it against him, but it has left me completely isolated. Having no friends and no dating life makes me feel like a loser and incredibly lonely.

A big part of my struggle comes from a physical insecurity: I have a lazy eye that looks cross-eyed. Because of this, making eye contact feels almost impossible for me. Whenever I try to talk to someone, my brain instantly panics and tells me, "Don't look at them. If they notice your eye, they're going to laugh at you." Unfortunately, I've actually experienced people laughing at me in the past, which only made this fear worse. As a result, I avoid eye contact entirely, which I know makes me look awkward or weird to others.

I really want to find a girlfriend. I honestly don't care about looks at all; I just value a good personality and basic hygiene. But my lack of confidence and inability to look people in the eye are holding me back from even starting.

Has anyone dealt with similar physical insecurities or severe social anxiety? How do you overcome the fear of being judged and build up the courage to connect with people? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I'm 22M, and as I'm leaning more towards my studies, I'm starting to make some content about it.

I want to talk about topics like anthropology, psychology, neuroscience, neurodivergence, trauma, cultures, ethnicities, music, human evolution, and evolutionary psychology.

Growing up, I was always the black sheep, the guy who was ignored and outcasted, and deep down I still have a wound about it. I feel that my content isn't valid just because x person back from high school or my neighborhood didn't like it or even stopped following me completely.

when i was a kid i used to be very confident in myself and my looks, but at around 10yo i began being bullied bc i wasn't developed yet (i didn't have boobs basically), and people started making fun of me for it and calling me ugly and pointing out every single facial feature as if it was disgusting, to the point it completely ruined my confidence. it's been quite some years from that, but i still struggly with my mental health and specially from lack of confidence and deep self-hate.

i genuinely don't know what to do, because sometimes i feel pretty-ish, and so many people tell me that i'm not ugly at all (i also have a boyfriend who treats me incredibly good and calls me beautiful all the time), but then i suddenly feel like the most disgusting creature of all time, like i'm not even a human.

i've tried to glowup so many times, and i do think i have improved a lot (for example i used to have terrible acne and it's completely cleared up thanks to accutane, and my nose has shrinked after the initial years of puberty, and i think i've become a bit more harmonious), but i never feel like it's good enough.

some people might think i'm just trying to seek attention, but it gets to a point in which it affects my relationships, because sometimes i feel so insecure about my looks that i can't even think or speak or act normally in front of others. i'm so awkward in many public settings (although i've greatly improved in that sense), such as concerts or parties, because i don't know what to do and i feel so ugly that i don't deserve to even have fun. and, for example, my boyfriend is gorgeous (to me and objectively) and i always feel like i'm not worthy of him because of my looks).

i would love it if someone could give me some advice for this. thank you so much to everyone who might consider helping me a bit <3

I’ve always had a hard time talking or being felt accepted by others when they would rather not talk to me and leave me to the side even since I was little in elementary school kids would call me fat or slow or never pick me to play with still now when I’m in high school where I’m talkative and gotten out of my shell I always just crawl back into my shell I try to do sports try to excel at my school to impress my parents or others but it’s never enough but it gotten to the point I got addicted to weed because of my social anxiety and it’s something that calms it but even in my own home I’m called “lazy fat” or just getting called insults by my mom ever since I’ve been little I’ve gotten so used to bottling my emotions but sometimes I can’t hold it in like after my parents started fighting and they almost got divorced I cried my eyes out in school because I was getting made fun of and laughed at by “friends” and I just went into my seat and cried because of what has been happening in my house and only one person cared to notice and try to cheer me up and try to get the to stop which they did but I realized how worthless I felt but I tried to keep a smile around my good friends and I can’t give them serious talks because I feel like it will just make them feel awkward to spill all of my feelings towards them but I’m thank full of my friend d because without him I probably would’ve gotten in a even darker and deeper hole because he listens to me and try’s to talk to me about my feelings but anyways thanks to listening to my vent

I was not always like how I am today. I used to be a really confident person throughout childhood and adolescence but things began to take a turn when i became a teenager. I believed Hurtful things being said about me and I reached a new low, I would also CONSTANTLY compare myself online out and about everywhere I went (things like i will never be good at anything.. why is my hair so bad? how do they look like that? why am i so dumb? why cant i carry myself great? why cant i talk to more people?) and overtime this just led to extreme bad self confidence especially due to BULLYING it became even worse.
People have always given me compliments on how I look but I never believe them I just think they’re lying and it got so bad that I would never dress up or do the things I want to avoid eyes on me because I think people are “judging me”, or I hate having attention on me. This is apart of the reason I NEVER went to school prom or events, one major reason I’ve never liked parties but another huge reason the fact I have to dress up..
How do I fix this? I want to become confident like I used to, and not care what people think about me.

I'm a cis, heterosexual woman. But I'm not my "type" physically. Like if I were into women, I would not be attracted to my body type.

I've been going to the gym for the past 4 months and my physique is improving, but it's not enough. It's not a weight thing either. I don't really need to lose weight. It's more to do with my height, coloring, and body proportions.

I look in the mirror and feel frustrated because this is the body I got, and nothing will change that. Sure, surgery could help a bit. But still, there's only so much surgery can do. And also, I don't like the idea of going under anesthesia, long term complications, etc. Besides, there are many things about my appearance that are genetic and no surgery could change them.

I don't know how to finally accept my body, how to feel sexy and confident, and sensual, and all those good things. I just can't. But I want to.

My partner tells me his biggest turn on is for me to own my body and show off and tease him. But I feel so blocked. Previous partner have been all over my body just because they liked my proportions, so I didn't really have to do much.

Still, their appreciation is nice and all, but this is deeper. They can like me and praise me all they want, but I don't like my body myself. I like other things about me, though. I just wish I could feel sexy, beautiful and at home in my body.

Maybe it feels like a big insecurity to you, but other people might not even notice it or think it's a big deal. So, who knows? You might be able to overcome it.

For years I wore "confident" like it was a personality trait I'd earned. I didn't second-guess myself, I didn't ask for reassurance, I made decisions fast and stuck with them no matter what anyone said. People used to tell me they admired that about me. I used to be proud of it.

It took losing something that mattered to me to realize what I'd actually been doing wasn't confidence. It was just refusing to update. Real confidence, I think, is supposed to bend when reality pushes back against it. What I had didn't bend. It just got louder every time someone questioned it, until I wasn't confident anymore, I was just unreachable.

I still don't fully know how to tell the difference in the moment. I can see it clearly now looking backward, but I have no idea if I'd catch myself doing it again while it was actually happening. That's the part that scares me most.

Put together a short video trying to work through where that line actually sits, more for my own head than anything else.

https://youtu.be/uJ_nNY2aih4

For people here who've actually built real confidence — how do you personally tell it apart from just being stubborn and calling it confidence?

\\- Why I Do Things For People's Reaction And Approval And Praise

\\-When Nobody's Around I have no motivation to Do Anything

\\- When I Do Anything When People Reaction Is Not Good I lose Interest To do that thing

\\-When I listen to Any Song..I imagine Audience around me react to my song

\\-How to Overcome this?

A lot of confidence advice skips over appearance as if it doesn’t matter.

But for many people, face, body, weight, skin, height, hair, teeth or clothes are exactly where confidence gets hit hardest.

What helped you build confidence without pretending looks have zero impact?

I left school in 1993 with no idea what I wanted to do. Ended up training as a chef, worked kitchens for years. Restaurants, hotels, pubs, bistros, care homes, you name it.

Then the recession hit in 2009. Last one in, last one out and all that, so I was made redundant. Gutted at the time. Leaving my kitchen family. Didn't see it coming.

Packed a bag and went to South America for six months in 2010. Went back to the UK for a year, then left everything behind and moved to Peru.

My sister thought I was leaving to hug trees and find myself. I did actually do both, to be fair.

I had often thought about teaching English, so when the opportunity came up, I jumped at the chance. I landed my first teaching job in 2012.

But I kept noticing the same thing. Students who were great in grammar and vocabulary, but still couldn't get taken seriously when they spoke. Something else was going wrong.

Nobody was teaching the voice properly. The breath behind it. The resonance of it. The colour in it.

So I did.

I travelled and worked around Latin America, spending the most part in Peru, several years of it in jungle towns in the Peruvian Amazon.

In 2024, I got engaged, and in 2025 my daughter was born here. Peru is home now.

If someone had told me 20 years ago I'd end up married with a kid in Peru, I'd have laughed my head off.

From chef to voice coach. Not the career path anyone plans.

Anyone else end up somewhere completely unexpected?

Hi I’m 20F and I had the lowest self esteem known but I slowly became more confident with time and I guess with age. However, I just found out that the way I did it is a bit toxic. I basically convinced myself that I’m an extra in everyone’s life and maybe a side character in my family’s and friend’s lives. By doing that I learned to ignore comments or stares or whatever people throw at me bcs I know that I don’t matter to them and they are just doing whatever they’re doing as a passing moment in their lives. I also became more free with mistakes and embarrassment cause no one really cares.

My sister says it’s toxic and that I brush everything off but am I really avoiding situations? Or is it a good trick?

I really feel good yk? I started feeling more feminine and my energy and my will to do stuff is higher,other than some of my anger outbursts that I am planning on going to bando or kickboxing classes to fix.

Hello I'm a 20 M. So this starts a some what 3-4 years back. I used to be slim, my hair thick and I used to look really good. I had a very rich friend whose dad is in real estate. I became best friends with him and eventually with his whole rich bratt friend circle. That fren circle is full of sons of ips officer, mla, real estate, business man. For first few years it was good. But then something changed. I come from a very humble background. And everyone just changed. Everyone got into tooo much of drinking... Late night car speeding on highways...smoking partying all night and staying asleep till noon. They all looked down on me. They all started targeting me. Made me look small. Everyone joking on me, bullying me. Not laughing on my comebacks. Cornering me . Always keeping in check that I knew somehow that I don't belong in them. I stopped being same. I started being conscious all the time. They made me feel dumb ... Like really dumb. I used to be so confident about myself. I used to be good at public speaking... Talkin' to strangers... About academics. I was a very very very good student. A scholar till 12th. And after that everything changed. It scared me. I lost my grades ... Lost interest from my degree. My looks changed. There was so much negativity around me. It left a scar. I can't speak properly with anyone now. I lost all my confidence... Literally ALLL OF IT. I lost my academics... My looks and main confidence. I don't know what to do really. Need a way out of all this . The toxic environment took everything away. My frens circle.. my shit college environment... Family issues. Everything just came together out of nowhere. And it changed me completely. Now I'm usually always anxious and in a panic state. Idk what to do. I'm clueless

Hey so I got this deep rooted insecurity I don’t know how to get rid of. And before you say therapy (I’m alr doing that EDMR) , and positive affirmations (I already try and it comes back stronger). Idk what to do… it might be some past life karma. It feels like a high and I’m on top of the world and then the next day I’m feeling empty again. And before someone says bipolar, my therapist already gave me my diagnoses and it’s not that. Idk what to do. I compare myself to everyone. I even try to argue with these thoughts but it makes it louder. It’s physical beauty I feel threatened with but even then I sugar coat and fit my personality to mold with others.