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[–] ISellDownvoats ago 

Be a wise person and realize your insignificance. You don't matter in this universe and neither does an emotion, especially a negative one that you internalized, that hurt your self image of grand significance from some person who's words are insignificant.

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[–] Acerebral 0 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago 

This is not an easy thing to deal with, but there are a few things you can do to mitigate it. Myself, I find that I tend to assign too much importance to casual comments and spend too much time trying to "read the tea leaves" to divine what a person is really thinking. Here are a few things that have helped me:

  1. Look for patterns rather than individual instances. If a person says something negative, file it away for context. If lots of people say something negative, maybe you are doing something wrong. If the same person says lots of negative things, they are probably just an asshole.
  2. Take things at face value. If somebody cancels on you, forgets to invite you to an event, or otherwise slights you in some subtle way, assume they are dense and either didn't consider that meaning or meant exactly what they said. They really did forget to invite you for no good reason, or they really to have an appointment that evening. You would be surprised how many people just say what they mean with no subtext.
  3. As a correlation to the one above, if they don't say it, they didn't think it. You can't read minds, you can't know what people are really thinking beyond what they say. If they don't explicitly say they hate you or think you are incompetent, don't fall into the trap of assigning those opinions to them.
  4. Change your axioms. This one takes work. If you are like me, you are waiting for people to figure out that you suck, that you are no good, that they really shouldn't like you. Instead (and this takes work) start with the assumption that "I am awesome." Then your thought process goes something like this: "I am awesome. He said that I didn't do such a good job on such-and-such project. But I know I'm awesome, so there are only two possibilities. Either he's an incompetent asshole, or I have some room to improve my awesomeness." (notice that neither option involves you sucking).

These are easy to write, but hard to put into action, and even harder to start believing. But it is important to focus on trying. At the beginning, just cover up the pain and smile through it like a glutton for punishment. It will get easier eventually, and given enough time, you will start to notice the self-talk you are doing to yourself that reinforces your inferiority complex. As you start to catch yourself agreeing with the negativity or even running with it, you can call bullshit on your brain and start to choose your emotional responses.

This is a hard one to deal with, and you will experience setbacks, but you are capable of overcoming this and improving your outlook on life. I wish you the best of luck, and know that you have the unconditional support of at least one stranger who believes in you.

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[–] NorBdelta ago  (edited ago)

A therapist or psychologist would recommend exposure therapy, gradually expose yourself to increasingly whatever you are sensitive to levels. You will eventually become indifferent. This is how pol operates with the antisemitic jokes, etc they are designed to deter those who are unable to talk the hard talk as it were and the jokes themselves immediately deal with overly sensitive people. It is a mindset, accepting that there are things out there you do not like is the first step, being sensitive to those things does nothing to their existence.

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[–] pokeytatsu7 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

You probably have low self-esteem so you value other people's opinions more then your own. Fix what you don't like and you'll feel better and won't get so mad.

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[–] physicscat 0 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago 

  1. Stop caring what other people think. People are idiots. Insecure idiots.

  2. Remember that all over the world there are people struggling with malnutrition, lack of clean water, war, torture...etc. perspective can do wonders.

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[–] TheDude2 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

Sit back and think about it. It most cases it doesn't really matter what people think. Think back of the times you got upset and how many of those people aren't no longer in your life.

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[–] NeedMoarGuitars 0 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago 

Practice learning to care less about other people's opinions, especially when they are negative. People who put you down feel bad about themselves and need to knock someone down to feel a tiny bit better. Don't give them the power.

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[–] ThisMachineKills 0 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago 

I always find it easiest to view things as if they're happier to a 3rd party.

Like think every day, if I were reading this in a book or watching it in a movie, would I care about what was happening. So if someone says something negative about me, I'd just be like "well that is certainly something, but I'm going to work on resolving the main plot."

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