this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2025
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Every time I see that little red number in my inbox, my first thought is: Did I mess up? My brain jumps to the worst-case scenario—maybe I said something controversial, and now everyone’s correcting me and downvoting my stupid comments. Even though, most of the time, the messages are actually helpful and fun, that number still triggers some sort of insecurity and anxiety. The bigger it gets, the louder my worries grow.

Logically, I know I don’t screw up that often, and most feedback is neutral or even positive. But deep down, my insecure monkey brain panics at the thought of being wrong—or worse, publicly called out. Even when I’m right, the number still makes my stress levels spike up. What if people disagree with me? What if they don’t like what I wrote?

And yes, I see the irony in posting this. Writing about it is basically asking for it and feeding the very anxiety I’m trying to ignore. Maybe it’s my version of exposure therapy.

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[–] Psythik@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Yes, especially since I'm an asshole and there's no option to disable inbox replies for comments on Lemmy (so I can't just hit and run). Nearly gives me an anxiety attack every time.

[–] chaosCruiser@futurology.today 2 points 3 days ago

You like to play it dangerous, it seems. Keep things spicy? In this thread I've bumped into more than a few people who do the same and ignore all notifications too. To them, it's just a huge meaningless number that grows all the time. These people are essentially the drive-by shooter of the online world.

[–] Nikls94@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

The community

Must

Grow

[–] irelephant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I just press mark all as read

[–] chaosCruiser@futurology.today 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

So you don’t read them at all?

[–] irelephant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 days ago

Well, sometimes, if they're mostly negative I don't bother reading them.

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 6 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Who cares what people on lemmy think about you or your opinions? I'd rather hear your honest opinion I disagree with than hear you agree with everybody else

[–] chaosCruiser@futurology.today 3 points 4 days ago

It's true that the opinions and comments don't matter. At the end of the day, they're just meaningless internet points and text that will be lost when the disk of my instance eventually gets formatted or when bit rot gradually eats them away.

However, that's not how my social monkey brain feels about it. Some primitive part of me that ignores all logic and reason clings to the notion of social acceptance and shivers at the mere thought of rejection. Can't disable that sort of thinking. Seems to be a hard-coded part of a function or something.

[–] spittingimage@lemmy.world 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Not worried exactly - but aware that I probably said something factually incorrect and now dozens of helpful people are lined up to set me straight.

[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 4 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Or dozenz to rip you a new one for defending a non (f)oss way of computing.
How dare you.
(and yet the same will use something like Plex, lol)

[–] IWW4@lemmy.zip 7 points 4 days ago

Hell no.

The reason I post here is to discuss things with people like things.

[–] Hossenfeffer@feddit.uk 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Why the fuck would you post this? It's wrong and you're wrong and you're a bad person and you should feel bad! Fuck! Fucking fuckety fuck!

[–] roofuskit@lemmy.world 7 points 4 days ago

Humblebrag.

[–] ILoveUnions@lemmy.world 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I say relatively controversial shit(not to troll--things I actually believe in) quite often. I've gone since gotten used to lists of disparaging comments. It's better to take it as an interaction dopamine hit

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[–] squirrel@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Hi, I just wanted to make your inbox go bling. You didn't mess up and I hope you have a nice day.

[–] chaosCruiser@futurology.today 5 points 4 days ago

Thanks. The number is already a bit overwhelming. Hopefully, I’ll get better at handling that feeling.

[–] FishFace@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Coming from reddit where I used to post on big current affairs subs there isn't really anything comparable here.

I comment to put my opinion across and also to be challenged. It takes me a long time to change my mind on something but it's only by hearing opposing views that it ever happens. In the meantime I generally enjoy defending my position and that's what I'm here for. It's a different perspective from yours but if a bunch of people disagree with me I don't think that I'm "being corrected" I think "my correct opinion is in the minority here."

Sometimes I do get a feeling of "here we go again", that's all

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[–] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (5 children)

Lemmy needs the "disable inbox replies" feature for comments imo. Although lately I see mostly polite disagreement.

[–] Kissaki@feddit.org 5 points 4 days ago

I politely disagree.

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[–] Gonzako@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

I haven't gotten to a point where I couldn't read all the messages I got yet

[–] hexagonwin@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 4 days ago

I never got big numbers there. Maybe because I don't write posts much and only comment.

[–] FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, I sometimes get that feeling "uh oh, what did I do?"

[–] chaosCruiser@futurology.today 2 points 3 days ago

We may be a minority. Turns out, lots of people don’t get that feeling.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 6 points 4 days ago
[–] WalrusDragonOnABike@reddthat.com 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yup. Usually don't get much replies between checking, so if it's more than 2, I worry. Probably doesn't help that I have done the thing where I accidentally say something that a reasonable person would interpret quite differently than my intended message and reasonably got dogpiled because of it.

[–] chaosCruiser@futurology.today 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Finally someone who agrees with me and validates my fragile ego and childish vulnerabilities. Thanks. You made my day!

Usually, my inbox has like 1 or 2 replies, but anything bigger than that makes me think I must have screwed up somehow. For whaever reason, it just doesn’t cross my mind that all those comments could be neutral or even positive.

[–] Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Well there's another stressful element that even if they are mostly positive or asking for further information, it's still a pile of "work I gotta do."

But remember, you don't actually have to respond to them. You can just click all the little check marks and move on. If you don't like what they said, there's always the down arrow. Or the up to acknowledge their support.

I don't, for instance, expect any kind of reply from you.

If it helps, remember that a ton of downvotes will knock your comment right off most people's feed. And unlike the R place, that number isn't going to follow you around forever.

If you're being misinterpreted, you can always add an edit, see if it helps.

In any case, Lemmy is a place for discussion. If you have responses, that means you contributed to the conversation. You didn't mess up. Even if you were completely Wrong, it gives an opportunity for lots of other people to post the Correction.

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[–] guy@piefed.social 5 points 4 days ago

Depends on what instance or post I have commented on recently!
Was it .ml and there's many notifications? sigh
Some meme I commented something I felt was witty? weeee

[–] ripcord@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago
[–] jimmy90@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

lol naaaah :)

[–] Eq0@literature.cafe 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Just to mess with you, I’m tempted to write a dozen comments with no real content… but other than that: i think it’s quite normal. Floods of negative reactions are more likely than positive ones, and more feared. In the other hand, Lemmy is a pretty chill place and, even when I got negative reactions, they were still cordial.

All in all, we are social monkey, and we care a lot about our social capital. That used to be the difference between survival by and death in nature, and we are still rooted that way. Even if we are accruing social capital with anonymous internet users we will likely never meet in person

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[–] lightnsfw@reddthat.com 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

No, it means I said something impactful enough for someone to respond. Even if they disagree with me it opens the door for a discussion. Maybe I'm wrong and I'm about to learn something, maybe I'll be able to explain something to someone else, maybe I'll get to argue with a moron, so many possibilities in those notifications.

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[–] hanrahan@slrpnk.net 2 points 3 days ago

👁️‍🗨️👀👁️

I've never even looked, I use Boost.

[–] Brkdncr@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Just replying to bump your unread inbox message count.

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[–] usernameusername@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I get the same feeling sometimes, but only when I posted something that I know could be going against the general opinion. Otherwise I'm happy to see the number go up

[–] Strider@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago (2 children)

It's like a box of candies...

Surprising constructive discussion or did I clumsily step on someone's ego again?

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[–] beerclue@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago (7 children)

I do, and not only on Lemmy, but also Whatsapp, Teams, email etc. It's the fear of screwing up and/or missing out, and a wave of anxiety combs over me when I see a number >0. I've been talking with my therapist about it, there are reasons and methods to overcome this...

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