Is it confidence? Or is it contempt?

Today's chin scratcher

Something happens to me when the stakes are very high or I’m shoved in front of a huge crowd of people to speak because I’ve made eye contact with the wrong person: I go the absolute distance. No problems. I look the person/host/camera straight in the eye, project, and launch into something that sounds like I’ve published textbooks on it.

People have complimented me often on my confidence.

But can I tell you a secret? I don’t feel confident. If you were to say to me, “In 10 hours, you are going to speak for 30 seconds in front of 5 people on [I dunno…] Thai mangoes.” I would not do anything but panic and obsess over what I would say for the 9 hours and 58 minutes after you’ve finished your request. I would immediately have 10,000 follow up questions for you. Then texts after that. And follow ups to your responses after that. I would need a paper bag to huff into. I would need diapers for my armpits. I would write down then cross out then rewrite then write again then rehearse out loud then record and play back then delete and record again ad nauseum. I would time myself. I would clap along to pace myself. I would work in jumping jacks somehow to burn off the nervous energy. I would practice in the mirror - not just what I would say but my expression, my posture, my hand gestures, how to cross my legs, I would try head tilts and different smiles and shoulder shrugs and blink pacing and I would do the brrrrrrllllllllppppppppsssss mwaaalalalalalammamamabababab drrrrttttppppp exercises with my dumb mouth having tripped over some word.

And another thing: if you randomly throw a microphone and/or camera into my face, I shut down inside. Internally, everything comes to a screeching emotional halt. It’s probably shock but instead of silence, I blackout and become glib. There is an appalling lack of awareness or feeling that almost crosses into disdain. It’s this that I think comes across as “confidence” - an utter lack of regard for what happens in those next seconds or minutes that people interpret as such overwhelming knowledge and experience as to be “comfort” “panache” “suavity”.

Maybe that *is* the secret: not caring. Is this the ultimate destination of our collective “fake it ‘til you make it”-ing? Genuinely not caring what other people think, be they familiar to you or complete strangers? Even if you find that you do care. Deeply. Obsessively. When you’ve had a chance to think on it and really process it, that is. Even if you really really care and then dissociate at the crucial moment, have you “made it”? Is the “it,” confidence? Does one, “make confidence”? Despite how malaphoric that sounds, it also works because a person is described as either “having” confidence or not. The quasi state in between is the faking-until-made.

Here’s what else, having had alopecia since the age of 6 and living a lifetime of ATTENTION, I cared, and on the off day, will still find myself caring about the perceived opinions of the people around me. Did my healing journey with therapy involve learning to love and accept myself? Some. Did my “fake it ‘til you make it,” sound more like, “STOP CARING, IT IS EXHAUSTING?” Mmhm, yeah.