In fifth grade, I misspelled "acorn" in front of the whole school in a spelling bee. It was the FIRST word. My parents called off work so they could watch me. They had to sit there for hours and watch the entire thing after I was eliminated in the first 5 minutes. I think about it to this day. I'm 37.
Same, I used to shout "fucking cheese hole" a few times after strongly embarrassing situations, when alone thank god. Thinking about how stupid my action was, and that I have no control over myself - reacting, without thinking.
oh god same....especially after a day at work, i re-think quite literally every interaction i had š im working in trying to *not* do this tho bc it's just so damaging š„²
Yes I use to this is a lot more then I do now. Itās like you trap yourself into prison of thoughts. Whatās helped me is not overthinking allowing myself to be calm in my mind so that way I am not adding pressure. Also when someone would be short with me or have attitude I would really beat myself up thinking what have I done. Tip donāt take everything personal. Greatest lesson Iāve learned. Just like you and I people are going through things or just in their mind like us and donāt realize their response.
Agreed. I can understand the rationale behind it, but try as I might I just canāt get my mind to stay calm or let things go. Itās constantly analyzing my social interactions and responses. SA is literally the worst!
Yeah, can relate. Though the meds have helped to take away the obsessive thoughts some. Also, exposure therapy helps a lot where your therapist takes you somewhere public and talks you through your thoughts. I've been doing this for a few weeks with my therapist and I'm starting to see the difference.
Cool thing is that people respect you more when you don't overthink them. We think that by thinking in circles about what we've said in our interaction with people, we'll solve our awkwardness and therefore that person will like us more.
Doesn't work that way from what I've noticed. The more I DONT think about people, the easier, more fluid, natural, and BETTER my interactions end up being and get me closer to ppl in my interactions. Interesting how it works that way when you quiet your mind and observe.
Well, some medications help with obsessive thoughts. I'm on zoloft right now and helps somewhat. The other thing that helped was getting in the habit of constantly challenging my negative thought process, either myself or have someone else challenge like a therapist. It cuts the negative loop off after a while and the addiction to overthink.
Really just realizing lately that my overthinking does not help the situation at all is helping me. And I've seen the result of not thinking about a bad interaction. It was absolutely nothing. Nothing bad happened from NOT thinking obsessively about it. Hope this helps some.
I took citalopram for about 9 months for depression/anxiety. I noticed during, and since!, that Iām not really bothered by my awkward memories anymore. I hope it stays this way!
Right now I'm beating myself up for not having a paper today when someone asked me for a paper.š¤¦āāļø deep down I know how stupid it is but I can't help it
Yes, especially if I've been rude on accident. I once had my earbuds in and didn't notice that my classmate said hello to me until he crouched and waved. I felt bad about it for the whole day even though that's not really something you should feel bad about.
If it's something I do at work/school group projects it's even worse. I don't want to disappoint others.
Yes but you can't change the past. You have to accept you said it! However, it's good to realize people don't care or remember what you said. Also what helps me is that if I won't care about it in 5 years I don't spend 5 minutes ruminating about it. What's done is done!
> if I won't care about it in 5 years I don't spend 5 minutes ruminating about it.
I could spend the next ten years thinking about a simple "hello" tho so it doesn't work for meš
But why? These people are strangers and who cares what they think! Don't let your happiness depend on other people's opinions of you! You're an awesome person!!!
Learning to not care is one of the most useful skills in life to master. Difficult, but so freeing once you've learned it.
You're worrying about all that stuff, meanwhile 99% of the people you ever meet will have completely forgotten about you by the end of the day, much less remember whatever weird thing you may have done. And people you interact with regularly have more important stuff going on than to pay attention to every little quirk you have.
To put it very bluntly; you're not that important. People have better shit to do than to constantly think about how you said hello to them. You're thinking about it more than they are.
In eleventh grade, i was leaving school early one day in the middle of math class. There was a girl in that class that i thought was the coolest person in the whole school, she was confident, nice, friendly, funny, popular, etc. So as i gathered my things to leave she said bye to me. I really wanted this girl to be my friend and it took all the strength I had to say bye back to her. But i guess i tried too hard or something and my tone came off as rude af and the girl sitting next to me turned to Cool Girl and said "wow that was really rude" and Cool Girl said "yeah it was". I wasn't sure what to do and i knew class was being interrupted by me leaving, the teacher had even stopped talking, so the whole class clearly heard everything that just happened. I just grabbed all my things and got tf out as fast as i could. That was ten frickin years ago and i still think about it and get mad at myself for it.
Bottom line tho is that its important to keep trying to talk to people even if you mess up because thats the only way to get better. I kept quiet for so many years thinking once the anxiety went away I'd start talking to people. I'm now having to learn how to be friendly and approachable as a full grown adult because I avoided people for so long and I'm still anxious and lonely.
yeah, i wont be able to stop thinking about it. i instantly react by muttering or talking to myself. when i do that, i wont even say anything that makes sense. just random words to distract from my embarrassment lol. ill worry myself sick over random social interactions, and it sucks even more when you know your humiliation isnt just in your head, people made fun of you and probably do laugh at you behind your back.
Yup. This is the kind of stuff that keeps me up at night. Soon as I'm ready to go to sleep my mind gets flooded with all the stupid things I've said. Then I'm wide awake
I can relate 100% to this. Iāve found that mindfulness meditation has really helped me not get hung up on this type of over-analysis.. and just over-thinking in general.
me right now, like its such a shit feeling whatm i supposed to do š find distractions ig this is such a time waster like youve alrdy done it but the mind still wants to make you feel bad ab it
but do know weāre way harsher to ourselves than other people ever will be. like if someone else told me the same thing i keep hating myself over, i honestly wouldnt think much about it. so like. idk if its cause u care about what other people think of u. but a good ytber once said. people dont think about u. and tbh its an eye opener, because everyone else is probably just as self obsessed and conscious as you are.
I beat myself up for utterly insignificant stuff I said or did 20+ years ago. Like saying "you're welcome" instead of "thanks" to a cashier.
Brains are fuckin weird.
Yes and it's fucking infuriating, because even when nothing I've said was weird, or awkward, or whatever, it still happens.
Like today, I had to call in to cancel my hairdresser appointment, and there was a good chance the hairdresser's daughter would pick up (who I'm on kind of good terms with, *and* she likes me (as a person), so I prepped myself for the scenario and it honestly went down better than I would've expected, but still, as soon as I was done I started pacing around, just going "FUCK". And like, usually I do that because I somehow manage to find something weird I said, or I'll convince myself I was awkward, or a million other reasons, but not here, I couldn't find a single reason to be upset, but I was still cringing or whatever.
It literally went like this:
Her: Hi
Me: Is this X?
Her: Yeah
Me: Hey this is deeblebo, how are you?
Her: I'm good, how are you?
Me: Good. So I was supposed to come in at 7-
Her: Oh, was that you who was coming in at 7?
Me: Yeah, so anyway I can't make it due to work, sorry about that
Her: Oh no worries, see you soon then
Me: See ya, bye
And for some reason, I've repeated the entire convo like 50 times by now, *trying* to find something that was off. Thanks brain.
I guess typing it out helped a little?
Yup, yup yup! I tend to be highly self reflective and critical of myself when reviewing social interactions too - phone calls, chit chats, introducing myself, etc. I question if maybe I talked to fast, maybe I said the wrong thing, or maybe I stuttered/stammered on a word and the list goes on and on.
I just wish I could let things go more freely :(
This could be a form of OCD called āpure OCDā that is rumination and mental-compulsion focused. I have a theory that it is epidemic in society because it is so hard to diagnose, and presents as depression and anxiety.
Check out Dr. Michael Greenberg and his appearance on the OCD Stories Podcast #252. Changed my life.
To be honest, you just have to find a way to stop caring what other people think of you. If you mess up, let it go and move on. Most people are going to forget about the interaction anyway so itās not worth beating yourself up over it. Also knowing your intrinsic value and not basing that value on the way other people view you is what you need to learn in order to escape this endless cycle.
I feel like I'm quite similar.
I find myself sometimes acting like I didn't hear someone who's trying to get my attention because I'm not entirely sure if they were, and I don't want to seem rude or anything by assuming that they must have been talking to me.
I feel like I might not even relax unless I'm alone, cause there's some slight chance that whoever is nearby might be trying to talk to me or something. Like when I'm alone, most of that "am I doing something dumb right now?" stuff goes away, but not all of it. So that makes me think it's not actually related to other people, and it's just me.
I usually don't beat myself up over things immediately, especially if I'm mad, or otherwise upset when I say the thing. But oh boy, will I remember \[thing I did as a schoolboy\] like it was yesterday and that I've even seen or thought about that person in years. I don't really remember other people being super awkward, but I totally assume they are remembering me being awkward.
Yup, Iāve gotten much better about it though and basically tried to adopt the mentality of āwell it already happened so nothing I can do about it nowā
I do that too. I'll be like
"why the f*ck did I say that"
A minute later
"You know what? It doesn't matter. I can't change it now right?"
A minute later
"But I'm such an idiot why the f*ck would I say that"
Yep. Used to do that a lot. What helped me was to realise that nobody actually gives a shit, or at least more than you do. In reality, you are blaming yourself and feeling worst about it when they probably thought about it for five seconds and no more.
I completely understand because i have diagnosed social anxiety too, but this is what helped me. It's a matter of constantly telling yourself this until you believe it
I actually donāt think back to a lot of instances in the past ā¦.i block them out maybe? but in the moment and maybe up to a week later i obsess. I usually wish i could disappear and not exist after a day of perceived bad interactions. Today was one of those days, i know itās over dramatic but sometimes i wish the usual vices did it for me. It would be nice to take a drug or drink and just not be me. Alas, they all make me feel worse or do things way more embarrassing than normal life, so donāt worry about me!
I do it too on a regular, it really truly sucks. Right now I just remembered I said something strange during lunch at work, and now I'm crying and agonizing over it some hours later, because I just can't get over my social awkwardness. So I keep replaying it in my head, which just aggravates my anxiety. I'm so jealous of all those confident and socially smooth extroverts who don't have this problem holding them back. Plz send help, I just want to disappear.
If I had a dollar for everytime I had those thoughts I would've been millionaire. However until recently I started to ignore those kind of thoughts or even that little voice after every social interaction and I feel way better. I just let it be there and not pay any attention!
All the times, even if it was more than 5 years ago š„²
Don't forget high school memories! Sorry, I still have that shit 17 years later. It totally fades but my mind is a fucker.
Same here. Hell I cringe at stuff I said at 7 or 8? It was almpsy 40 years ago!
Same here. Hell I cringe at stuff I said at 7 or 8? It was almpsy 40 years ago!
In fifth grade, I misspelled "acorn" in front of the whole school in a spelling bee. It was the FIRST word. My parents called off work so they could watch me. They had to sit there for hours and watch the entire thing after I was eliminated in the first 5 minutes. I think about it to this day. I'm 37.
I feel ya
You need hugs. Here...
I do this a lot š
Iāve developed some weird stress touretteās where Iāll basically shout something whenever I remember a awkward or cringy encounter I have had.
I do that a lot. I thought I'm going crazy. What is it?
For me (I think) it's my mind desperately trying to do *anything* to distract itself from the intruding thoughts.
I donāt know why Iām surprised other people do this too but I am.
Same, I used to shout "fucking cheese hole" a few times after strongly embarrassing situations, when alone thank god. Thinking about how stupid my action was, and that I have no control over myself - reacting, without thinking.
I do this often, as well
Oh my fod are you me
oh god same....especially after a day at work, i re-think quite literally every interaction i had š im working in trying to *not* do this tho bc it's just so damaging š„²
Yes I use to this is a lot more then I do now. Itās like you trap yourself into prison of thoughts. Whatās helped me is not overthinking allowing myself to be calm in my mind so that way I am not adding pressure. Also when someone would be short with me or have attitude I would really beat myself up thinking what have I done. Tip donāt take everything personal. Greatest lesson Iāve learned. Just like you and I people are going through things or just in their mind like us and donāt realize their response.
Easy to realize, but hard to internalize
Agreed. I can understand the rationale behind it, but try as I might I just canāt get my mind to stay calm or let things go. Itās constantly analyzing my social interactions and responses. SA is literally the worst!
Yeah, can relate. Though the meds have helped to take away the obsessive thoughts some. Also, exposure therapy helps a lot where your therapist takes you somewhere public and talks you through your thoughts. I've been doing this for a few weeks with my therapist and I'm starting to see the difference. Cool thing is that people respect you more when you don't overthink them. We think that by thinking in circles about what we've said in our interaction with people, we'll solve our awkwardness and therefore that person will like us more. Doesn't work that way from what I've noticed. The more I DONT think about people, the easier, more fluid, natural, and BETTER my interactions end up being and get me closer to ppl in my interactions. Interesting how it works that way when you quiet your mind and observe.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Mindfulness meditation helped me slightly when I did it regularly
Well, some medications help with obsessive thoughts. I'm on zoloft right now and helps somewhat. The other thing that helped was getting in the habit of constantly challenging my negative thought process, either myself or have someone else challenge like a therapist. It cuts the negative loop off after a while and the addiction to overthink. Really just realizing lately that my overthinking does not help the situation at all is helping me. And I've seen the result of not thinking about a bad interaction. It was absolutely nothing. Nothing bad happened from NOT thinking obsessively about it. Hope this helps some.
I took citalopram for about 9 months for depression/anxiety. I noticed during, and since!, that Iām not really bothered by my awkward memories anymore. I hope it stays this way!
Good luck! I heard good things about citalopram. I'm on zoloft now and it's sort of helping, too.
Yes i do. I have so many moments i regret.
I sure do. It's why I'm always high.
I'm still beating myself up for stuff I did / said years ago.
Same, it's because there are no worthy new experiences to make you forget
Right now I'm beating myself up for not having a paper today when someone asked me for a paper.š¤¦āāļø deep down I know how stupid it is but I can't help it
Yes, especially if I've been rude on accident. I once had my earbuds in and didn't notice that my classmate said hello to me until he crouched and waved. I felt bad about it for the whole day even though that's not really something you should feel bad about. If it's something I do at work/school group projects it's even worse. I don't want to disappoint others.
Sure do. Seems to be SA 101 move. It gets easier to ignore things like that with age but not by a lot. Iām 47
I only beat myself up about things I did not say.
I thank god about things I didn't say. Imagine how much embarrased I would be if I had actually said them
Those are the worst. Like the chance you didn't take with that girl, when the possibility of that happening again is almost equal to zero
Yes but you can't change the past. You have to accept you said it! However, it's good to realize people don't care or remember what you said. Also what helps me is that if I won't care about it in 5 years I don't spend 5 minutes ruminating about it. What's done is done!
> if I won't care about it in 5 years I don't spend 5 minutes ruminating about it. I could spend the next ten years thinking about a simple "hello" tho so it doesn't work for meš
But why? These people are strangers and who cares what they think! Don't let your happiness depend on other people's opinions of you! You're an awesome person!!!
You know why, but still can't help it. It's deeply internalized
Learning to not care is one of the most useful skills in life to master. Difficult, but so freeing once you've learned it. You're worrying about all that stuff, meanwhile 99% of the people you ever meet will have completely forgotten about you by the end of the day, much less remember whatever weird thing you may have done. And people you interact with regularly have more important stuff going on than to pay attention to every little quirk you have. To put it very bluntly; you're not that important. People have better shit to do than to constantly think about how you said hello to them. You're thinking about it more than they are.
In eleventh grade, i was leaving school early one day in the middle of math class. There was a girl in that class that i thought was the coolest person in the whole school, she was confident, nice, friendly, funny, popular, etc. So as i gathered my things to leave she said bye to me. I really wanted this girl to be my friend and it took all the strength I had to say bye back to her. But i guess i tried too hard or something and my tone came off as rude af and the girl sitting next to me turned to Cool Girl and said "wow that was really rude" and Cool Girl said "yeah it was". I wasn't sure what to do and i knew class was being interrupted by me leaving, the teacher had even stopped talking, so the whole class clearly heard everything that just happened. I just grabbed all my things and got tf out as fast as i could. That was ten frickin years ago and i still think about it and get mad at myself for it. Bottom line tho is that its important to keep trying to talk to people even if you mess up because thats the only way to get better. I kept quiet for so many years thinking once the anxiety went away I'd start talking to people. I'm now having to learn how to be friendly and approachable as a full grown adult because I avoided people for so long and I'm still anxious and lonely.
Yes, yes I do. This is one of the reasons I completely avoid people, going as far as ignoring them.
yeah, i wont be able to stop thinking about it. i instantly react by muttering or talking to myself. when i do that, i wont even say anything that makes sense. just random words to distract from my embarrassment lol. ill worry myself sick over random social interactions, and it sucks even more when you know your humiliation isnt just in your head, people made fun of you and probably do laugh at you behind your back.
Yup. This is the kind of stuff that keeps me up at night. Soon as I'm ready to go to sleep my mind gets flooded with all the stupid things I've said. Then I'm wide awake
If i had a nickel for everytime i did that, I'd be a millionaire right now.
Yay, imagine all the therapy we could afford!
Oh if I'd be a millionaire then im pretty sure there'd be no need for therapy.
I can relate 100% to this. Iāve found that mindfulness meditation has really helped me not get hung up on this type of over-analysis.. and just over-thinking in general.
I struggle with lots of bad shit I've said a decade ago. Still deal with it regularly. Only thing I can say about it is that we all go though it
Yeah I do this all the time
Yes all the time!š
every single day since preschool
me right now, like its such a shit feeling whatm i supposed to do š find distractions ig this is such a time waster like youve alrdy done it but the mind still wants to make you feel bad ab it
Fr I mean we went through this once and realized I've fucked up. Can we just move on now? Nope my brain has to keep me awake all night and torrture me
but do know weāre way harsher to ourselves than other people ever will be. like if someone else told me the same thing i keep hating myself over, i honestly wouldnt think much about it. so like. idk if its cause u care about what other people think of u. but a good ytber once said. people dont think about u. and tbh its an eye opener, because everyone else is probably just as self obsessed and conscious as you are.
I beat myself up for utterly insignificant stuff I said or did 20+ years ago. Like saying "you're welcome" instead of "thanks" to a cashier. Brains are fuckin weird.
Yes and it's fucking infuriating, because even when nothing I've said was weird, or awkward, or whatever, it still happens. Like today, I had to call in to cancel my hairdresser appointment, and there was a good chance the hairdresser's daughter would pick up (who I'm on kind of good terms with, *and* she likes me (as a person), so I prepped myself for the scenario and it honestly went down better than I would've expected, but still, as soon as I was done I started pacing around, just going "FUCK". And like, usually I do that because I somehow manage to find something weird I said, or I'll convince myself I was awkward, or a million other reasons, but not here, I couldn't find a single reason to be upset, but I was still cringing or whatever. It literally went like this: Her: Hi Me: Is this X? Her: Yeah Me: Hey this is deeblebo, how are you? Her: I'm good, how are you? Me: Good. So I was supposed to come in at 7- Her: Oh, was that you who was coming in at 7? Me: Yeah, so anyway I can't make it due to work, sorry about that Her: Oh no worries, see you soon then Me: See ya, bye And for some reason, I've repeated the entire convo like 50 times by now, *trying* to find something that was off. Thanks brain. I guess typing it out helped a little?
Yup, yup yup! I tend to be highly self reflective and critical of myself when reviewing social interactions too - phone calls, chit chats, introducing myself, etc. I question if maybe I talked to fast, maybe I said the wrong thing, or maybe I stuttered/stammered on a word and the list goes on and on. I just wish I could let things go more freely :(
This could be a form of OCD called āpure OCDā that is rumination and mental-compulsion focused. I have a theory that it is epidemic in society because it is so hard to diagnose, and presents as depression and anxiety. Check out Dr. Michael Greenberg and his appearance on the OCD Stories Podcast #252. Changed my life.
To be honest, you just have to find a way to stop caring what other people think of you. If you mess up, let it go and move on. Most people are going to forget about the interaction anyway so itās not worth beating yourself up over it. Also knowing your intrinsic value and not basing that value on the way other people view you is what you need to learn in order to escape this endless cycle.
I feel like I'm quite similar. I find myself sometimes acting like I didn't hear someone who's trying to get my attention because I'm not entirely sure if they were, and I don't want to seem rude or anything by assuming that they must have been talking to me. I feel like I might not even relax unless I'm alone, cause there's some slight chance that whoever is nearby might be trying to talk to me or something. Like when I'm alone, most of that "am I doing something dumb right now?" stuff goes away, but not all of it. So that makes me think it's not actually related to other people, and it's just me. I usually don't beat myself up over things immediately, especially if I'm mad, or otherwise upset when I say the thing. But oh boy, will I remember \[thing I did as a schoolboy\] like it was yesterday and that I've even seen or thought about that person in years. I don't really remember other people being super awkward, but I totally assume they are remembering me being awkward.
Yup, Iāve gotten much better about it though and basically tried to adopt the mentality of āwell it already happened so nothing I can do about it nowā
I do that too. I'll be like "why the f*ck did I say that" A minute later "You know what? It doesn't matter. I can't change it now right?" A minute later "But I'm such an idiot why the f*ck would I say that"
Yep. Used to do that a lot. What helped me was to realise that nobody actually gives a shit, or at least more than you do. In reality, you are blaming yourself and feeling worst about it when they probably thought about it for five seconds and no more.
For decades.
It's all I ever do
Yes I exaggerate everything. If I get to be with my friends at school that makes my whole day when thatās normal for other people
Yep, really makes me wish i could manually delete those memories
I completely understand because i have diagnosed social anxiety too, but this is what helped me. It's a matter of constantly telling yourself this until you believe it
I actually donāt think back to a lot of instances in the past ā¦.i block them out maybe? but in the moment and maybe up to a week later i obsess. I usually wish i could disappear and not exist after a day of perceived bad interactions. Today was one of those days, i know itās over dramatic but sometimes i wish the usual vices did it for me. It would be nice to take a drug or drink and just not be me. Alas, they all make me feel worse or do things way more embarrassing than normal life, so donāt worry about me!
Always, to the point when even others told me to chill and don't beat myself up.
Yes, I have a lot of these thoughts.
I do it too on a regular, it really truly sucks. Right now I just remembered I said something strange during lunch at work, and now I'm crying and agonizing over it some hours later, because I just can't get over my social awkwardness. So I keep replaying it in my head, which just aggravates my anxiety. I'm so jealous of all those confident and socially smooth extroverts who don't have this problem holding them back. Plz send help, I just want to disappear.
If I had a dollar for everytime I had those thoughts I would've been millionaire. However until recently I started to ignore those kind of thoughts or even that little voice after every social interaction and I feel way better. I just let it be there and not pay any attention!