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Hilary's avatar

I haven’t seen your tweets in a while, because I left Twitter, but don’t feel bad that you need it for your job - you would probably be exposed to the opinions of others in other jobs or spaces, and because you are thoughtful, expressive and attuned to the needs of others, this will always be something that you are aware of and that is important to you!

I’m halfway into my first year as a high school teacher, and even though I love my job, I wasn’t prepared for the intensity of hundreds of kids (and coworkers) suddenly having opinions about me! As you say, negative ones can’t just not hurt, but also just the constant feeling of being assessed is exhausting.

I also do believe (have to believe) that there are phases to this feeling, and there will be times where it gets to you, and there will be times where you have an acceptance of/resilience to this part of your job. I hope you have good friends around you to remind you how incomplete the perceptions of strangers on the internet are, and that this letter has released some of those cruel thoughts you have about yourself.

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andré carlisle's avatar

deeply appreciated this openness, as i get paralyzed by exactly this ~biweekly. clearly i haven't found anything that works, but one jolt that lessens it is remembering that humans were never meant to have this much interaction on a daily basis. it can be overwhelming whether it's good or bad attention. i try to remind myself that i'm not for everybody, and (crucially) that it's their fault, not mine, that they came across my content anyway. there's plenty out there for them, and i thank god/buddha/allah/whitney houston that i'll never have to burden myself with being what they want.

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