Con Mind

I realized today that it's a confidence problem. Perhaps you already knew this, or have been telling me this for years, but... In several separate encounters today, I realized that I was genuinely startled when people seemed to like me or show any interest in me, and that I have a sort of basic expectation that unless I am making a concerted effort to be exciting, most people probably have at least a mildly negative impression of me.

And the other day, I realized very concretely that a lot of my anxiety about work is because I am genuinely worried about proving that I am good enough to be here.

I don't exactly know what to do about these realizations, which don't actually sound all that revelationy when I write them out. I think the revelation is that these are perceptions, not necessarily the underlying fact. Like, the underlying fact isn't that I have been boring and anti-social and unengaging in most situations here, it's just my perception of my own behavior.

The mind is a strange and often inaccurate place.