mango-meridian
Student
- Apr 5, 2024
- 100
For about a decade I've been putting forth a lot of effort to improve myself socially, and it's mostly felt like a waste of time.
I'm not talking about trying to change my core personality. I'm talking about things like not offending people, not being insensitive, not being too blunt, not being creepy, not being too "forward", not being too "passive", not being too cringe, not being too weird, not making people feel inadequate, etc.
I don't think it's unhealthy to want to change these patterns and behaviors. (Maybe my mind is warping things and everyone is actually cool with the way I act all of the time, but I doubt it.) Some of these behaviors seem objectively harmful, or at least uncomfortable, to other people. And the repercussions don't feel good for me either. Finding a solution should be a win for everyone.
And yet, all of my attempts to change or improve on these things haven't yielded results. I've improved a little, but not much.
After nearly every social interaction/event, even ones that seem like they went mostly fine, I go into a prolonged think about what I did and said and how other people responded. Then comes the onslaught of self-criticism.
I replay the most worrisome moments a crazy number of times, sometimes as many as 50. I can't even focus on anything because the moments keep popping up in my head again and again. Even if I try to resolve them in my mind and explain to myself what the lessons learned were and why I should stop worrying about it, they keep coming back anyway.
You'd think that after years and years of carefully and obsessively analyzing my interactions to try to "do better", that I would start to do better, but that hasn't really been the case aside from minor improvements here and there.
I think a lot of my behaviors probably have to do with my autism, OCD, anxiety and other mental health problems.
Still, though, I like to try to be optimistic and imagine that there is a way to improve myself in spite of these conditions. I want to take responsibility for everything that I can, especially if some of the things I do and say make others feel hurt, uncomfortable, etc.
I've talked about these things with all of my therapists and have never received a single useful insight or piece of advice. Their suggestions just don't go deep enough. Example: "Maybe you just need to be more vulnerable." I talked about therapy in a recent post here. Long story short, I don't think it's going to be an answer for me.
So I've been trying other things.
Self help books have been crap and have actually made things worse in many cases.
I feel like at this point I really only have two options:
1) Keep trying. I do think that lately I have gotten a lot better at having awareness of my inner emotions and my reasons for acting in certain ways. I feel like maybe if I keep at this for a few more months, there will be some sizeable breakthroughs. It makes sense that I wasn't making progress if I wasn't understanding my true, innermost reasons for doing things.
2) Just surrender to the fact that I will have these problems forever and get used to the loneliness that comes from being this way. If I choose this route I am basically accepting that 80-90% of the population will just be put-off by me. Or, at least, it has felt that way.
Regardless of what I do, I SO want to be done with the cacophony of painful, annoying criticisms that follow my every interaction. I don't think it's helpful at all. And I want some peace for hell's sake. I feel like if I want to reflect on important moments, it should be enough to do it ONCE, draw a conclusion and then be done.
But maybe my brain keeps bringing up these moments over and over to me because it wants me to find the true, correct conclusion and I have just never been good at finding it. I actually think there may be some truth to this.
If anyone has been though similar things or has some insights, let me know.
I'm not talking about trying to change my core personality. I'm talking about things like not offending people, not being insensitive, not being too blunt, not being creepy, not being too "forward", not being too "passive", not being too cringe, not being too weird, not making people feel inadequate, etc.
I don't think it's unhealthy to want to change these patterns and behaviors. (Maybe my mind is warping things and everyone is actually cool with the way I act all of the time, but I doubt it.) Some of these behaviors seem objectively harmful, or at least uncomfortable, to other people. And the repercussions don't feel good for me either. Finding a solution should be a win for everyone.
And yet, all of my attempts to change or improve on these things haven't yielded results. I've improved a little, but not much.
After nearly every social interaction/event, even ones that seem like they went mostly fine, I go into a prolonged think about what I did and said and how other people responded. Then comes the onslaught of self-criticism.
I replay the most worrisome moments a crazy number of times, sometimes as many as 50. I can't even focus on anything because the moments keep popping up in my head again and again. Even if I try to resolve them in my mind and explain to myself what the lessons learned were and why I should stop worrying about it, they keep coming back anyway.
You'd think that after years and years of carefully and obsessively analyzing my interactions to try to "do better", that I would start to do better, but that hasn't really been the case aside from minor improvements here and there.
I think a lot of my behaviors probably have to do with my autism, OCD, anxiety and other mental health problems.
Still, though, I like to try to be optimistic and imagine that there is a way to improve myself in spite of these conditions. I want to take responsibility for everything that I can, especially if some of the things I do and say make others feel hurt, uncomfortable, etc.
I've talked about these things with all of my therapists and have never received a single useful insight or piece of advice. Their suggestions just don't go deep enough. Example: "Maybe you just need to be more vulnerable." I talked about therapy in a recent post here. Long story short, I don't think it's going to be an answer for me.
So I've been trying other things.
Self help books have been crap and have actually made things worse in many cases.
I feel like at this point I really only have two options:
1) Keep trying. I do think that lately I have gotten a lot better at having awareness of my inner emotions and my reasons for acting in certain ways. I feel like maybe if I keep at this for a few more months, there will be some sizeable breakthroughs. It makes sense that I wasn't making progress if I wasn't understanding my true, innermost reasons for doing things.
2) Just surrender to the fact that I will have these problems forever and get used to the loneliness that comes from being this way. If I choose this route I am basically accepting that 80-90% of the population will just be put-off by me. Or, at least, it has felt that way.
Regardless of what I do, I SO want to be done with the cacophony of painful, annoying criticisms that follow my every interaction. I don't think it's helpful at all. And I want some peace for hell's sake. I feel like if I want to reflect on important moments, it should be enough to do it ONCE, draw a conclusion and then be done.
But maybe my brain keeps bringing up these moments over and over to me because it wants me to find the true, correct conclusion and I have just never been good at finding it. I actually think there may be some truth to this.
If anyone has been though similar things or has some insights, let me know.
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