The Spotlight Effect?

Why are they looking at me?

That is still my first response every time someone looks at me. At first, I thought that I was just highly insecure, but as it turns out, there is more to that. Have you ever heard of the Spotlight Effect Syndrome? Cabrini University describes the Spotlight Effect as the tendency to overestimate how much others notice aspects of one's appearance or behavior. This causes social anxiety, and I want to help dilute some of that. In addition to that, I also watched a TedTalk entitled The Spotlight Effect: The Journey to Self-acceptance | Vasundhara Kaul

As she talked, I realized that we have something in common: we have been transferring to different schools. Since Kindergarten until Grade 4, I have been changing schools because I follow where my mother teaches or my two older sisters are. Only then, until Grade 4 until Grade 6, could I have a constant set of friends. So, it gave me the idea that I should be hypervigilant of my surroundings and adapt quickly and as fast as possible. This is a problem for now; even as an adult, I am hypersensitive to what others think of me.

Turns out that there is more to life than what other people think of me and hopefully this will be able to reach out people who have experienced the same situation.

Thoughts?



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