"I'm looking for baggage that goes with mine."

High Self Monitoring is the diagnosis (I could have done better than Wikipedia, but a lot of the articles I read about it are behind pay walls.)  Isn't that a better term than "obsessed with what others think of them?"

Okay, there is a lot more to Self Monitoring than just worrying about what people think, but that is a lot of it.  Couple that with a healthy dose of social anxiety and its a wonder I go out and meet people at all.  (Yep, I'm an extrovert with social anxiety, because God loves a good laugh.)

I think too much and too often about my interactions with people.  That guy who cut me off on the freeway and forgot about me 30 seconds later, he's taken up my residence in my brain for the rest of the drive.  It was one of my biggest fears about becoming a teacher, because a good teacher doesn't want the students to like her, she needs the students to respect her.  Earn their respect and they'll like you well enough, eventually.

So I wrote a post a few days ago and I was depressed and getting sick (although I didn't know it at the time.)  When I am depressed, the social anxiety goes into overdrive.  There are people who can connect dots and figure out who and what I am talking about, but I decided it doesn't matter.  I didn't use names and I need to start facing up to this stuff.

I am worried that if people know I have Hashimoto's they will somehow think less of me.  I also have social anxiety and depression (which is exacerbated by the Hashitmoto's), which has a host of other problems.  I don't want to seem like I come with baggage.

But people do have baggage and I think that I could do with being a bit more honest about mine.  It isn't easy for me to say, but don't like it?  Tough.

photo credit: mellyjean via photopin cc