"Don't worry about what other people think"

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Or "don't do what I do, do what I say".

Also "act your age, not your shoe size".

That's it. That is it!

Joe90, there is a time where you have to process the way others treat you and work through it, which is a time of healing. However, there comes a time where you have to accept yourself no matter what others think. That includes learning to avoid those people who cut you down. In addition, ask yourself, "Ok, do those people even know me? Are their negative thoughts even worth my time?"

It's easy for people to say "what strangers think of you shouldn't matter" or "if they're judging you then it's them who are stupid, not you", and all of those sorts of clichés. But for one thing I am hypersensitive to other people's thoughts and body language, so if I feel people are judging me for being myself I can physically feel it and it becomes distressing. And another thing I don't want to go out looking or feeling different or ridiculous because I just hate people looking at me.
One time I was waiting an hour for a bus, and I started becoming agitated and distressed but had to bottle it because I didn't want to show myself up in the street. Then a bus did come along but and I thought that was finally my bus, but it just rushed by with "out of service" on the front. I could not bare masking any longer, so I sighed and said, "for crying out loud!" (but I didn't shout it loudly) and of course everyone turned around and looked at me, so I felt like I was on stage for a few seconds (those few seconds felt longer for me). Then I started worrying about it after, wishing I had of just kept quiet. But I had to "let it out".

I do have social anxiety so the only people on the planet who might understand this are other people with social anxiety. One of our biggest fears is being the center of attention in public, even for a few seconds, because we know that people pick up on the teeniest, tiniest thing about you to the point where they can almost guess your name and birthday, and we also know that people gossip and like to judge other people if they don't know the "full story" of what is going on in your life. It's not easy to just wake up one day and not feel anxious about what people think of me any more.

When I was a child I didn't even know people who don't know you ever judged you. So I used to do really stupid things and my friends would be like "don't do that, it's so embarrassing, people will laugh", and I was like, "they will? But they don't know me, why would they care?" and my friends were like, "they just do, you have to be calm and cool." I still had to learn the hard way how scrutinizing people are.

My first sponsor (I’m in a 12-Step program) told me early in my recovery, “What other people think of you is none of your business.” I didn’t believe her, and I’m still not sure I do completely.

I’m sorry to say it doesn’t necessarily get better as you get older, or at least it didn’t for me. If anything, it’s gotten worse because the stakes are higher now.

It's still hard to not let it get to me. I have social anxiety, and if I feel like I'm in the spotlight or being noticed or shown up by strangers, I get extremely panicky and distressed.

Yesterday I was on a bus, upstairs on a double-decker, and the bus stopped at a stop near a school playing field. There were teenage boys playing football, and I was just watching them, since that was all there was to look at from my view. Then suddenly one of the boys stood there waving at the bus with both his arms, then he pointed towards the top of the bus and said something to his mate and he started waving with both his arms too.
I felt fed up because I can't seem to look anywhere without catching someone's attention and them responding idiotically. It's quite natural to look out of the window at any kind of human activity when you're on a bus, and surely they must be used to the bus going by the back of their school every day, so I wouldn't expect they'd really notice. Also I was sitting on a seat where there was a wall beside me between two windows, so I could see out from an angle but I was mostly hidden behind the wall, so from their view (about 100 yards away) I didn't think they could really see me. There was only one other (older) woman who sat a few seats behind, and maybe they were waving to her, but my social anxiety tells me otherwise.

Then people wonder why I get self-conscious in public. People scrutinize me, they must do because they notice everything I do. If I don't look people judge, if I do look people judge. What am I supposed to do?

I think this varies by culture and region. Here in New York City, most people ignore most other people whom they don't know, at least for the most part, at least most of the time. This isn't the case in small towns.

I have no way to judge how realistic your perceptions are. What kind of a place is Maidstone, and how would you describe its local culture, relative to any other places where you have been?

I don't know, I find that the small villages are more friendlier. Everywhere I go, bigger towns and cities are full of judgemental people who stare at you even if you're not that different enough to stand out or freak people out. I just feel that people yell out whatever's on their mind about me when I'm just going about my daily business.
The other day I was in the supermarket trying to choose something for dinner, and there was no-one else in the aisle at the time. My trolley was next to me, not blocking anyone's way, and a couple of people came into the aisle, and as they came past me I heard one of them yell at the top of their voice "YOU'RE BLOCKING THE WAY!! !" I wasn't sure if they were yelling it about me or maybe at each other, but neither of them wanted to get where I was standing. I turned around and looked at them, but they had their backs to me and their body language did look as if they were just in a bad mood with each other, but no matter how much evidence other people's body language gives away, my social phobia still manages to make me believe that everybody's laughing, staring or talking about me within earshot when I'm not even doing anything wrong.
It's like I'm being bullied by strangers and I cannot ignore it. I don't expect people to be so rude and tactless to someone they don't know who isn't doing anything wrong.

Unfortunately we cannot control the behaviour of others around us. If they are in a grumpy mood then whatever we do or say, or don't do or don't say, won't make any difference. We should just be ourselves. I know from personal experience this can be tough, trying to live up to the expectations of others whereas in truth, most of the people we see everyday in the street don't really care unless they're our friends or close family.

Social anxiety does tend to make us unduly paranoid or sensitive that it is you or I that has a problem and that the person is looking at us or accusing us - which is seldom the case. I've sometimes heard things or seen others thinking I was the cause only to look again and see that they're looking at or referring to something else completely.

I think life might have been easier for at least some of us 500 years ago. Peple lived in small towns or villages and were mostly interrelated, so eccentricity might be at least tolerated. The pace and complexity of life was less, which would help with executive functioning problems. And there was MUCH less noise and sensory input, so people like me wouldn't get so easily overloaded.