i care about what you think of me, and it's ruined my life

  thoughts lately:

  All of my life, I've struggled heavily with the stress of what other's think of me. Peoples' thoughts, their body language towards my decisions, and my assumptions on what I've guessed that people must think of me have ruled my every action throughout life.
  Often times, I play it off like people's words don't affect me, but they do. What's ironic is that someone could tell me a million things that I'm doing right, and they could say one thing negative, or show any ounce of detected dissent in their expression and that'll be the official single, solitary thing that I direct all of my attention and energy focusing on.
  I feel like a lot of my time on this earth has been spent crying and tossing and turning at night trying to figure out a solution to the crippling thoughts of others that rule my decisions. I think I kept thinking that there was always an easy solution-- that I "simply needed to stop worrying about what others thought of me", just like everyone I asked, seemed to keep advising me.
  However, I don't think that it's that simple. As I've entered a newer chapter of my life, I've been doing a lot more of what makes me happy and no one else. I've done a lot more of learning to keep my distance from some people, (even if they're family.. because family is toxic, too). I've just taken a lot of different steps in healthier directions that haven't been easy, but after I've made these choices for myself.. I feel so much better, already.
  I'm scared to say that I already "feel so much better", because I haven't gotten to the harder parts of learning to set boundaries with people that you've literally never set boundaries with. I already know ahead of time that the Holidays will be hard. Sometimes, seeing the people that you've decided to keep at arms length is inevitable, but I think I'm going to try to work around it.
  With all of that being said, I feel like the act of setting boundaries with people who illicit nothing but negativity and care nothing for you is a basic step of learning to not care what people think of you, and choosing to take care of yourself.
  In this season of my life, I've found myself in a constant state of change, thought, and learning to take better care of myself, and it's been a long-time-coming. I think after years of allowing what others thought of me to rule my decisions, it's definitely going to take some time to reverse it, but I'm happy that I'm taking baby steps in the right direction. It feels healthy and good.

  kati