Bad anxiety with new dream garden – Reddit Post

I’m struggling hard with my new garden and looking for others who can relate or maybe have words of wisdom.

I decided to go all in with a big vegetable garden. Never done anything to this scale before.

It’s a dream garden. Tall raised beds with a very tall (deer proof) beautiful fence around it and trellised gates – pinterest worthy. The goal was to grow year long food and be a source for positive mental health (ironic).

So why am I struggling?

I’m feeling painfully aware it’s big. We get occasional deer where we are, they’ve eaten plants in the past, so the fence is tall. The neighbors can see the whole thing. I feel like when I’m in there everyone is looking at me. I worry they all hate it. I worry they think it looks too cluttered. I worry that I’m going to 1) fail and look like a complete pretentious fool or 2) be successful but not be able to manage all the growth and it will look chaotic and they’ll hate it even more.

Friends and family have seen it, and their reactions were “Wow, that’s a lot of beds” or “I didn’t realize it was going to be a STRUCTURE” or “planning for the apocalypse?” or “who are you keeping out, t-Rex?” One saw it and literally said nothing at all. It really hurts my feelings and makes me feel silly for having liked or wanted it. Either way, it’s 100% the perception from others that I worry over.

Some neighbors have said they like it, or that it came out great, others have talked with us throughout the build, seeming genuinely interested in it – but I’m convinced myself they must be lying and behind closed doors are hating it. Because if friends and family are sharing those reactions, surely neighbors are thinking the same.

If this garden was on a multi-acre property, or if neighbors couldn’t see it, I wouldn’t care AT ALL. It’s beautiful. But it’s on the side of the house, because that was the only option, and is visible to many neighbors. And now I literally wake in the middle of the night in straight panic attacks. I cringe when I think about it during the day. I’m having a hard time looking at it when I pull up to my house. I’ve been avoiding going out there unless it’s dawn or dusk. I get this is a total mental thing, but I’m seriously struggling. After all this time and money spent building this, I’m not allowing myself to enjoy it. I’m feeling emotionally detached towards the seedlings that haven’t been planted yet (like wtf).

I wanted to fulfill a dream I’ve had for a long time. I wanted home grown foods. I wanted to make the garden pretty, for me and for my neighbors since they’d have to see it. It’s built with high quality material, and it looks professionally done. I was really excited. But now all I can think is why did I have to want this? What was wrong with just buying vegetables at the store? Why did you have to waste your money on this? Why did you have to subject your neighbors to this? Why couldn’t you just be like everyone else?

I don’t know what to do. I feel embarrassed and ashamed. I’m getting paranoid that the neighbors are pointing at it and talking with each other badly about it.

Has anyone else experienced this? Am I too much in my head, and really everything is fine? Was I unrealistic with the size of the garden? I see people online with them and it seemed like the right size to do. Do friends/family just not understand and feel comfortable sharing but don’t mean anything by it?

I actually saw a post yesterday in this group of a garden that looks just like mine, and (most) everyone in the comments had nothing but wonderful things to say.

Am I being too sensitive? Am I thinking way more about this than any of neighbors are? Any advice?