The fear of how we’re perceived by others is a form of victim mentality, on three distinct levels. It says:
I depend on how others perceive me.
I’ll only be okay if they perceive me a certain way.
I need to control how they perceive me.
But I also can’t help how they perceive me.
It’s the assumption that we are at the effect of other people’s perception, that our well-being is contingent on their having a certain perception, and that there’s nothing we can do about any of it.
But the good news is that we can do everything about it, because it’s all made up, we’re the one who made it up, and we can unmake it.
Each of these perspectives is the perspective of someone who believes that they are not fully responsible. It’s the view of someone who says that they don’t have a say, without recognising that saying you don’t have a say is having a say. It’s just using the say to defeat yourself.
The desire to control how we’re being perceived is in itself a form of victimhood. Only the victim wants to control. When we’re fully responsible we’re in control of everything, so we don’t need to control anything.