It’s extremely difficult. For me personally, it was like a “light switch moment” where all of a sudden I stopped giving a shit about what other people thought about me when I was in high school. I came to the realization that these strangers aren’t my friends, and I’m not going to be hanging out with them ever.
I still value my friends’ opinions, but I also don’t have judgmental friends, so it still ends up working out.
It’s also not a black and white thing. When you’ve spent your entire life convincing yourself that strangers’ opinions matter, then deprogramming yourself is going to take some time. Don’t be discouraged if you feel like your mindset hasn’t immediately changed after reading a random internet post from a person you’ve never met. Just because something happened to me a certain way doesn’t mean that you’ll have the same experience.
It’s extremely difficult. For me personally, it was like a “light switch moment” where all of a sudden I stopped giving a shit about what other people thought about me when I was in high school. I came to the realization that these strangers aren’t my friends, and I’m not going to be hanging out with them ever.
I still value my friends’ opinions, but I also don’t have judgmental friends, so it still ends up working out.
It’s also not a black and white thing. When you’ve spent your entire life convincing yourself that strangers’ opinions matter, then deprogramming yourself is going to take some time. Don’t be discouraged if you feel like your mindset hasn’t immediately changed after reading a random internet post from a person you’ve never met. Just because something happened to me a certain way doesn’t mean that you’ll have the same experience.