Internet help: Lately I easily get put down and think people are talking about me, especially on the internet through indirects…. - Help.com

I don’t think you are crazy. Whenever people are whispering I believe it is natural to think they are talking about you. I do the same thing… I read something and I think, “hey those b*****ds are talking about me and I get upset. Mostly they are not, it is just your insecurities working against you.

What I do is think “well they are the losers, they have nothing to do but worry about me… screw them.” And then I go on with a smile and quit worrying. Live your life and who cares what others think?

I agree with Dr. Ralph, additionally I would say to be aware that your underlying assumption (that they are talking about YOU) is very likely incorrect in most cases. Whenever you notice yourself ‘on guard’, take a second to realize that you don’t have any firm reason to suspect that you are being talked about. Unless you have firm and clear reason to suspect that they are discussing you, immediately let it go.

If you get your guard up whenever you think someone ‘might’ be talking about you, 1) you end up on guard and stressed out needlessly and frequently, and 2) you draw attention to yourself. If you can keep in mind that it is very very unlikely that they actually are talking about you, then it’s better for you, the way you feel, the way you live, and the way others view you if you let it slide on by without reacting.

If they are talking about you 1 out of 500 times that you suspect that they are talking about you… I’d rather accidentally not notice that they are talking about me 2 out of 1000 times than to incorrectly assume that they are talking about me 998 out of 1000 times. That incorrect assumption could get triggered often enough to leave me exhausted from being needlessly ‘on guard’ all day long.

On the internet I think you have to generally assume that people are not talking about you, unless they say so fairly explicitly or are someone you are pretty close to and interactive with — otherwise you might take personally any random comment that has an emotional impact on you. I’ve known at lot of people who made a game of it, taking personally random comments that we all surely weren’t meant for them, but those are risky games and some of those people end up really crazy.

All that said, you can discover many of the reasons that comments people make seem to be about you. One is paranoia, one is vanity, one is the fact that you influence others so then their thoughts are related to yours, one is that you are coincidentally in the same place as someone else, perhaps drawn there for the same reasons that others are, so you have mutual interests. This is just offhand, it’s easy to think back and remember times when I or myself took something personally and shouldn’t have or vice versa.