From the time I was around 11 until I turned 18 or 19 I felt this way.
I'm the oldest in my family & so I was the first to hit puberty, the first to become defiant over everything, the first to become sexually active, the first to start thinking for myself -particularly in terms of religion & philosophy- & so on.
Because my mother didn't have a real childhood to speak of & had no prior experience dealing with these things before me, she treated each one like something that had to be eliminated rather than accepted as normal teenage experiences & growth & worked through.
As a response to this, I hid everything.
I had constant anxiety that she or anyone who so much as had an occasional conversation with her would learn anything about me.
I left the house the morning of my eighteenth birthday & it was only after I got away that I finally began to feel comfortable in my own skin.
It was easy to learn to be zen & the art of not giving a fuck about pleasing anyone other than myself once the person whose opinion I valued most, my mother's, wasn't there to wave her finger & tell me "shame, shame".
I have a good relationship with her now & it's understood between us that I'm going to do what I feel & she can express her approval or displeasure all she wants to my open ears but if she wants to pitch a fit because I did it anyway, she won't hear from me until she starts minding her own again.
She's only done that once or twice since I left her house & now she doesn't do it all.
The answer to anxiety?
Learn to please yourself. If the well thought out, final preconceived outcome of everything you do is to make yourself happy, you can't lose. You can't be wrong.
IIN to feel like I am living a lie and hide everything from everyone?
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From the time I was around 11 until I turned 18 or 19 I felt this way.
I'm the oldest in my family & so I was the first to hit puberty, the first to become defiant over everything, the first to become sexually active, the first to start thinking for myself -particularly in terms of religion & philosophy- & so on.
Because my mother didn't have a real childhood to speak of & had no prior experience dealing with these things before me, she treated each one like something that had to be eliminated rather than accepted as normal teenage experiences & growth & worked through.
As a response to this, I hid everything.
I had constant anxiety that she or anyone who so much as had an occasional conversation with her would learn anything about me.
I left the house the morning of my eighteenth birthday & it was only after I got away that I finally began to feel comfortable in my own skin.
It was easy to learn to be zen & the art of not giving a fuck about pleasing anyone other than myself once the person whose opinion I valued most, my mother's, wasn't there to wave her finger & tell me "shame, shame".
I have a good relationship with her now & it's understood between us that I'm going to do what I feel & she can express her approval or displeasure all she wants to my open ears but if she wants to pitch a fit because I did it anyway, she won't hear from me until she starts minding her own again.
She's only done that once or twice since I left her house & now she doesn't do it all.
The answer to anxiety?
Learn to please yourself. If the well thought out, final preconceived outcome of everything you do is to make yourself happy, you can't lose. You can't be wrong.