Forget about trying to change this from the perspective of thoughts. Cognitively understanding that you should "just" stop worrying about what other people think about your work might not bring you far.

Instead, realize that anxiety is a bodily phenomenon and as such needs to be addressed with the body. That means: Breathing techniques, exercise etc.

Does this also count as psychosis?

I get your point that diversifying the points of external identity validation makes you less dependent and this is a better position.

My question is about another strategy, to stop identifying/attaching etc. at all with what you do. And that is not illuminated to me.

Also the addition of "how hard it can be to even figure out what you want to do". This is imo a huge thing.

The decision paralysis and fear of doing and being what YOU authentically want - not somebody else, not some rules, not some abstract expectation what your future partner want you to be like, not what your mother/friends/teachers/mentors wants you to be like, not some "rational person" as described below, but you and you only - brings you pain and avoidant behaviors.

The avoidant behaviors come with a compounding cost on top and you can spend so much time not actually doing what you want.

But how do you "not" do these things?

It seems like I am doing these things automatically and I don't even know how the alternative world where I'm not doing these things looks like.

They definitely have merit and aim initially for a good cause, but their institution over time always attracts sick people, bullies, who like to abuse others and seek situations where they will not be punished for it.

Imagine being that person, who’s daily job and enjoyment is to reject other people, drag them through this disrespectful and demeaning process, witness the disappointment and sadness in the others eyes when they get to hear “No.” and when blame themselves for it.

All too familiar. I have two Macs. I upgraded one of them to Sonoma and ever since then it has been nothing but headache and disappointment. Starting from the upgrade having failed (meaning I had to completely wipe the disk and install Sonoma from scratch, luckily I still had data), to problems with Handoff, the firewall seems to not work, Excel very slow etc etc.

I don't recommend using Sonoma.

No no no. Stop with the senseless proliferation of pills. If pills were the solution we would not see the huge need for talk therapy - which works only if there is a genuine therapeutic relationship. If you think this further, if you’re in a situation where your therapist is the only non-toxic person in your environment and the only person you can truly connect to, then it’s not your “brain chemistry” but the toxic environment you need to get out of. Don’t take pills to endure shit. Don’t drink coffee to replace sleep.

Can anybody relate?