Sup asktrp,

I'm a 24 yo male that has been suffering from a genetic neurological condition called essential tremor since I was 13. The condition affects my entire body, but is most pronounced in my fingers and wrists, which shake noticeably when I have to perform certain daily tasks and are a cause of serious embarrassment and kill my confidence every time someone notices. To illustrate, here's a list of stuff I cannot comfortably do:

  1. Eat with a fork & a knife (the tremor is less severe in my right hand, so I do just about fine with just a fork on most days)
  2. Hold a champagne glass
  3. Handwriting
  4. Pour drinks / carry plates
  5. Drive stick (hard to do clutch work since my left leg starts to shake)
  6. Play an insturment
  7. Lift weights
  8. Caress a girl
  9. Take pictures

Here's a video of someone affected by the disease, although my case is slightly less advanced: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVRKO-Sz0x4

The disease is progressive and currently there is no cure and treatments are quite limited. Essentially you can get brain surgery (which is not an option where I live and usually only very severe cases are considered for this) or you can take beta blockers which lose effectiveness over time in most cases and make you feel like shit with a myriad of sides. Anxiety makes the tremors worse (and alcohol / drugs help with the anxiety part), but there's still a good amount of tremor even when I'm perfectly calm.

The general question I have is how does one go about building true, sustainable confidence when faced with something like this? I feel that there are two strategies available to me:

  1. Accept the condition and be cool with it / open about it, but the problem is that it's still awkward as hell for other people to see me shake like a bottom-of-the-barrel alcoholic and It's impossible to ignore the fact that they are thinking less of me. The moment I'm put into one of those scenarios where people see my hands shaking, my frame dissolves completely. In ten years, despite all of my efforts, I haven't been able to convince myself that "I'm the shit" when I cannot adequately perform basic tasks. If you think this strategy is the way to go, then I'd appreciate some help here!

  2. Purposefully avoid the sort of social situations where my tremors might show, e.g. saying I'm not hungry even when I am so that I don't have to eat in front of other people; making up stupid excuses to not pour girls drinks; not escalating with girls in situations where the type of escalation warranted would risk showing the tremor. This has been my go-to strategy for the most part and has allowed me to maintain a facade of confidence & normalcy and experience the benefits that come with social status, while still being deeply troubled on the inside.

I don't know if this strategy is going to sustainable as my condition progresses, but regardless of practical sustainability, I emotionally feel that I need a way out. I feel like I'll never reach the levels of inner game and confidence that I want unless I truly become entirely comfortable myself and know that I have nothing to hide. This has been quite tl;dr, so I'll cut it short here: How do I get from where I am to where I want to be? So far, I have focused on improving other areas of my life that I have control over, but this particular issue still remains debilitating in spite of developments in other areas, so I believe that it needs surgical focus. If you have any questions, let me know and all advice is much appreciated!