people disliking me

Something I've learned coming into my young adult years is that truthfully, no one really cares, or is thinking about you that much. Everyone is worried about their own lives and own insecurities, and yours are non-existent in their minds. Plus, I will give you a tip.... If someone doesn't like you, then you don't need them in your life honey! The right people/friends that will actually love and truthfully care about you will love you for who YOU are. You will never have to change or worry about yourself for the right people. Criticism is hard for everybody, (definitely not trying to de-validate you, you are completely right to feel those feelings!) but it is hard to hear. Nobody wants to hear that they are doing something wrong. But hey, guess what? We all do bad things! This is coming from someone who has done some very, very bad things, and there are a lot of people criticizing me in the background. I worry about it too and I feel like no one likes me because of it. Try to think of criticism as an opportunity to grow and be a better version of yourself! Don't take or tolerate unnecessary criticism from people that don't like you, because simply put, it's not your truth. I'm sorry you are feeling these feelings and I wish you the best!

I’ll add my own experience. I had a group of friends who I thought were family. But more interactions with them revealed to me how insecure they really were. In the guise of “constructive criticism”, I was told that I was too fat and ugly to attract a female SO. That I was unworthy of love or physical intimacy. I actually took that advice to improve myself, lost a bunch of weight, got a physical trainer, and started “looking better”. But, even then, I got the same bullshit story and told I wasn’t in the top 20% of men and that I lacked personality (I needed to become a jerk). This is called projection, narcissists do it all the time. So I now realize that I need to find an authentic inner self. I also realize that ironically, my most authentic version of myself was when I was “fat and ugly”. I started down the authentic path, visiting places I wanted to go (hint: my user name says it all) and I soon started getting criticism for it. I went to Lake Tahoe/Reno instead of Las Vegas, because I like nature and western stuff. My friend was shocked at that and how dare I skip Vegas? Lol 😂

I talk in a lot of my articles about hyper-sensitivity in OCD. This is so much more common than we think. It is because we are so in tune with others and so empathetic sometimes I think- that we believe everyone must think like us. I really encourage you to do some self-compassion- look into Kimberly Quinlan- she has some great resources on this.💛