Social awkwardness, low self esteem

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March 29, 2019 at 3:55 pm #286945
coconut
Participant
Hello.

I have social anxiety/awkwardness and I have low self-esteem, I am quiet around people and don’t have much to say, I mostly listen. The reason I don’t talk much is because I don’t talk about other people or about my life because I know people don’t really care and I don’t want to say things about myself just to not be silence. I also can’t really express myself well verbally, I forget words, I can’t explain things or talk to someone about a movie/book because I kinda forget what happens pretty fast. I also don’t remember much from school, I feel stupid and like I don’t know anything while others are able to express themselves, talk on a subject, be coherent etc. I think the reason I don’t remember much from school is that I didn’t really understand what I was learning, I didn’t imagine it what that actually means in real life, I just memorized everything. It helped me get good grades but now I don’t remember almost anything, I am so confused about the informations I know. So I have this insecurity that I am stupid, I feel like my mind is blank around other people when they make conversations.

I also think a lot about my boyfriend’s past which is nothing compared to our relationship but I feel really jealous. This may come from the fact that I had my first boyfriend at 17 yo. I didn’t get much attention from guys until that age. I don’t regret it at all, but it really affected my self-esteem.

Everytime I see a girl on the street or I hear a girl laugh or see a group of boys and girls, I feel jealous, angry, hateful, I always associate girls with him, his past, and because of this I get jealous.

I want to overcome all of this for my own inner peace. I kind of feel unmotivated, apathetic, lack of energy… because everytime I get out of the house for shopping or work I feel like everybody is watching me and I feel like I walk weird, like I stand too rigid when waiting for the bus. I feel watched when I do absolutely everything which sometimes makes me drop things etc…

I can’t live like this anymore I want and I hope I can overcome this and just be natural. I don’t want to become sociable I want to be able to relax in public like I am relaxed at home. Deep breathing, meditation, telling myself things etc doesn’t work. I need to somehow change my thoughts and how I think and believe those things, but I am stuck. It doesn’t help trying to be rational, asking myself things like “What proof do I have that somebody is watching?”, “So what if someone will see you and think you’re clumsy, stupid?”. Rationally I am aware that it’s all in my head but this doesn’t help.
- This topic was modified 5 years ago by coconut.
March 29, 2019 at 4:14 pm #286949

coconut
Participant

I want to say that I don’t act bad towards my bf when feeling like that. I have learned to be like this, I am proud of myself. Things are going better than ever between us, I am 100% content with him, how he behaves etc.

Another problem I have at work or wherever it requires to be creative, give ideas. My mind is blank. I can never be creative and give ideas… If I am asked at an interview “What would you change/ how would you improve….*anything*?”. I just don’t know.

I wish I would be smart, creative, free of social fear…

March 30, 2019 at 8:49 am #286985

Anonymous
Guest

Dear coconut:

I am glad to read, “I don’t act bad towards my bf when feeling like that.. I am proud of myself”- I am proud of you too, for exercising self discipline successfully and no longer picking fights with him (if I remember correctly from your previous thread).

“I forget words.. I kinda forget what happens pretty fast. I also don’t remember much from school, I feel stupid… I didn’t really understand what I was learning.. I just memorized everything. It helped me get good grades but now I don’t remember almost anything”-

– you and I have a lot in common. When I was in school, including college I too memorized, passed the tests and then forgot. I had a great difficulty processing and retaining information. I too forgot words when talking to people and not only did I forget what happened in a movie, I wasn’t able to follow what was happening during the movie. Later in life I understood that it wasn’t that I was unintelligent but that I was anxious. Significant anxiety interferes with natural intelligence, it creates a sort of a fog in the brain that slows down mental processes. Once you become way less anxious, your ability to process and retain information will greatly improve! And you will be able to come up with the words when in conversations with people.

“I also think a lot about my boyfriend’s past.. I feel really jealous”- another thing we had in common, I too thought a lot, obsessing about a man’s past, as if it was happening in front of my eyes. With improved mental health, this too will dissipate.

“every time I get out of the house for shopping or work I feel like everybody is watching me and I feel like I walk weird, like I stand too rigid when waiting for the bus. I feel watched when I do absolutely everything which sometimes makes me drop things etc.”-

– you are being watched but not by other people. You are being watched by a mental entity called “the inner critic”, it is a representative of a critical parent that criticizes us all day long, it criticized me all day long similar to how it criticizes you. You get out of the house and it tells yo: you are walking weird!. You wait for the bus, and it tells you: “you stand too rigid!” You do whatever it is you are doing, and it tells you: you are doing it wrong!

Having someone (the inner critic) criticizing you like this all day is very uncomfortable, quite scary, really, this is why you drop things, and forget things.. this overly active inner critic is causing and fueling your anxiety.

When you learn to weaken more and more this inner critic, you will be less anxious because you will no longer be under ongoing attack, and then you will be able to “be natural.. able to relax in public”.

Would you like to share about who your inner critic represents, who criticized you early on and maybe still?

anita

March 30, 2019 at 12:43 pm #287013
coconut
Participant
Thank you anita for replying.

I don’t know for sure…Me and my parents only have a studio apartment, something small, so I have always been watched unintentionally (because we don’t have much space) by them with everything I did, especially by my dad who always watched me and told me how to do things and it annoyed me very much that he was most of the time observing what I was doing. He is kind of criticizing but not in a way that makes me scared, but in a way that makes me extremely annoyed. He nagged me all the time when I was living with them, but it was less frequent now than it was when I was little. For example if I wanted to watch a tv show I couldn’t because he was like “You watched that all day, do something else”, “you’re always on your phone, take a pause”. And he was saying things like these every single day. He was nagging me all the time and saying things that are not true just so he could annoy me, like “you’re on your phone again? you were on your phone all day” and sometimes it wasn’t true because I did other things too. Or sometimes if I took the phone after doing some chores for example or helping them with something he was like “fast, on your phone now”. I got to the point where I was shouting at him for everything he was saying to me, always taking it as a personal attack. Also, we 70% of the time disagree with each other.
- This reply was modified 5 years ago by coconut.
March 30, 2019 at 3:20 pm #287029

Anonymous
Guest

Dear coconut:

I will read your recent post (and any that you may add to it) when I am back to the computer, no later than in 15 hours from now.

anita

March 31, 2019 at 2:05 pm #287101

Anonymous
Guest

Dear coconut:

What you shared in your recent post is that your father is harassing you and has been harassing you for a long time, purposefully trying to annoy you. Did I understand correctly, he is… having fun annoying you, causing you to get upset?

Examples:

1. You watch TV and he tells you “do something else”, but not telling you what that something else is, intending to interrupt your relaxing viewing of TV.

2. You are on your phone and he tells you “take a pause” but doesn’t tell you what he wants you to do after that pause.

3. You help him and your mother with chores, or you do other things during a day and he knows it, yet he tells you that you were on the phone that whole day. He knows it is not true but he wants to see you distressed. Did I understand correctly?

anita

April 1, 2019 at 10:44 am #287205

Prash
Participant

Dear Coconut

Sharing here some thoughts I tell myself to be relaxed in the presence of people, to be yourself irrespective of who is around you

Take stock of your strengths. It can be surprising how often we forget that. Keep reminding yourself on a consistent basis about these.

Tendency is to focus on what is wrong with you. Shift that focus to what is right.

You may tend to dislike that thing about others which is actually present in yourself. See if you can recognize that and be willing to forgive yourself as well as others for that.

Some people may not be deserving of your understanding and compassion but most people are. They are suffering just as you are. When you are able to see this commonality, you are able to let go of the barriers that prevent you from being at ease.

for those people who seem undeserving let them be; they are not worth your time or effort.

The mind is powerful. It is able to make you recognize that the thoughts are in your head but yet prevent you from making changes easily. The key is to take it one moment at a time – slow yet steady.

Take care

April 3, 2019 at 2:53 am #287343
coconut
Participant
@Prash: Thank you for your advice.

@anita: I wouldn’t call it harassment. I felt like he was acting like that because of his own frustrations and because that’s how his family is too. He wants more from me and we are kind of alike. He wants me to be sociable, do things not waste my time, care about things like career and money, to want more from life to get a house to live well, to earn enough money to get everything I want and be ambitions and I don’t think I’m like that.. I mean I want to have those things but they’re too expensive and I don’t feel motivated at all. I have a job now and I earn enough so I can pay for my rent and everything with my boyfriend.

Or maybe deep down I am but my fear of people is holding me down so much, this is not a good life at all, to live in a constant fwar of people and like…. always try to be perfect and not look bad while eating, walking, not look stupid. For example if someone tries to be friendly and nice to me I feel awkward. I feel like they think I’m nice and then they’ll discover how awkward and clumsy and stupid and quiet I am. Or I try to be careful not come off as rude, mean… I just feel annoyed and frustrated.
- This reply was modified 5 years ago by coconut.
- This reply was modified 5 years ago by coconut.
- This reply was modified 5 years ago by coconut.
- This reply was modified 5 years ago by coconut.
April 3, 2019 at 3:00 am #287353

coconut
Participant

(I meant *fear, not fwar.)

April 3, 2019 at 8:15 am #287373

Anonymous
Guest

Dear coconut:

The good news is that this “Social awkwardness”, this acute self consciousness, this ongoing self criticism- these can be gone, part of the past and you can feel comfortable. I know it is possible because I was very socially awkward and very, very self critical, like you, I too wondered if I was sitting right or standing right and what are people thinking about me now.. and now, what terrible things are they thinking about me..

And I am okay now, once in a while a thought occurs, and then that fear, but I am able to contain those thoughts and that fear and I don’t drown in these. Socially I feel quite comfortable, significantly more comfortable than before!

So you can too.

Your father then, when he felt his own voice criticizing himself (maybe for living in a small studio apartment while he wished to live in a big house), what he did or still does, to a lesser extent, is shift that voice from what-am-I-doing-wrong to what-is-coconut-doing wrong.

Let’s say a thought occurs to him: I should have been successful and made enough money to buy a house, and not live in this small apartment. He then feels distress and quickly focuses on you: coconut should not be watching TV, she should make sure that she can buy a house and not end up in a small studio apartment.

Do you think this is what happens?

anita

April 3, 2019 at 12:45 pm #287431
Peter
Participant
Hi Coconut (great handle)

Like you I’m a great story teller. My mind just won’t quite down at times and most of the stories I tell myself are negative. end result low self esteem = social awkward. The advice I was most commonly given was to stop telling myself negative stories and only tell positive ones. As I never fully believe the positive stories I was spinning it didn’t work. It actually made things worse.

What did work was when I noticing when I was telling myself a story and just stop telling it without filling the gap with other stories or the like. No labeling, no judgments, no excuses, no incrimination, no ‘positive thinking… When I couldn’t stop the story I acknowledged that and moved on.

You may also find Viktor Frankl’s work helpfull
1. Dereflection: Dereflection is aimed at helping someone focus away from themselves and toward other people so that they can become whole and spend less time being self-absorbed about a problem or how to reach a goal.
2. Paradoxical intention: Paradoxical intention is a technique that has the patient wish for the thing that is feared most. This was suggested for use in the case of anxiety or phobias, in which humor and ridicule can be used when fear is paralyzing. For example, a person with a fear of looking foolish might be encouraged to try to look foolish on purpose. Paradoxically, the fear would be removed when the intention involved the thing that was feared most.
3. Socratic dialogue: Socratic dialogue would be used in logotherapy as a tool to help a patient through the process of self-discovery through his or her own words. In this way, the therapist would point out patterns of words and help the client to see the meaning in them. This process is believed to help the client realize an answer that is waiting to be discovered.
April 3, 2019 at 1:37 pm #287439

coconut
Participant

@anita: That is true, I think that’s the reason he kept nagging me but the truth is it didn’t help. Can you suggest me some ways I can overcome, step by step, my social awkwardness and my fear of people (fear to be myself, to say my thoughts/opinion)?

@Peter: I agree to what you said. I don’t want to try to tell myself positive things just so I can feel better about myself because it just doesn’t work. I don’t feel those things. I want to be honest with myself. For me trying to tell myself things like “you’re beautiful, intelligent bla bla bla” … doesn’t work. At all. I wanna be real and honest and tell myself only the truth and what I really feel not some random praise words that I don’t feel. I should be addressing the problem and take steps to overcome it…and when I’ll feel some real change (to be relaxed in public, to not be afraid of people or afraid to look stupid or ridiculos or whatever) , then I’ll feel proud and better about myself.

I want to not feel less than others, and I feel like that. Like I have to be perfect for them, to say the right things, to cover the fact that I am awkward..which doesn’t work… Also I don’t really care much about others… only if I feel a little connection or something then I “can” talk because I kind of care a little about what the other has to say. But 90% I don’t really care about others, and when they talk to me either I say things that I don’t feel so I can keep the conversation going either I just don’t say anything, just nod and smile. Also I don’t like to share because people don’t actually care…and I don’t want to share things about myself just to pass the time…and let people that don’t matter to me know things about myself. I am a very private person. I am not friendly, warm, close to others. Rather I am cold, distant, don’t talk to them, but also I don’t want to upset them so I am nice to them. But if someone says something bad about me or makes a comment I feel attacked and become aggressive.

People can talk like 30 mins about the same thing….but I’m not like that. If they ask me something I just say the answer not talk about it for like an hour and repeat myself just so I can talk and share everything. Also, if someone is making jokes I feel awkward because I don’t know what to say back and I just don’t say anything and don’t feel very amused either so I just smile even though… I don’t feel like that??

If I’d be myself I think I’ll come off as negative and too serious ….The truth is I am like that… And I’m not impressed by much, I don’t care about many things.

I also am afraid that if for example… I say some opinion or thought that others wouldn’t like, I feel like they will always see me through that thing they didn’t like and judge me only by that…. Cause sometimes people don’t like you but they don’t have a real reason…and then talk to others about you and turn them against you too….and I’ll feel rejected and “bullied” (kind of, bullied it’s too much) all the time just because people like to gossip and be mean and make fun of others…. and I don’t want that so maybe that’s why I try to not upset anybody and keep everything to myself, cause it would make me really anxious to come to work and have people who would say mean things to me, or subtle things to me. Sure, I can tell them to stop and maybe they will. But I’ll still get rejected and not connected at all with others.

For example sometimes, or maybe most of the times I may come off as negative and a ‘hater’. People that are close to me know that’s not 100% who I am and love me regardless. But other people will be like omg she’s so negative and stupid and bla bla bla….and like….that’s not entirely who I am but they don’t care enough to understand I’m not 100% like that and I have good parts…. they would care to gossip, to be mean, to reject me, to make myself feel bad. And people have this power over me… if someone is mean it affects me very much.And I think that’s what I try to avoid.

Another example is that with the closest people I can just be myself and react and say exactly how I feel. With others on the other hand, I am afraid. I always try to be very nice, agree with them, not contribute to the conversation to not say something “wrong” or that they don’t agree with…

April 3, 2019 at 3:17 pm #287449

Anonymous
Guest

Dear coconut:

I am looking at the last three lines of your recent post: “I always try to be very nice, agree with them, not contribute to the conversation to not say something ‘wrong’ or what they don’t agree with”.

You asked me: “Can you suggest me some ways I can overcome, step by step, my social awkwardness and my fear of people (fear to be myself, to say my thoughts/opinion)?”

My answer: yes, I can suggest a first step, and if you follow it and get back to me about it, I will respond, and at some point suggest a second step and then a third.

Step 1 then: remember a recent social situation where a conversation took place and you felt afraid to say something ‘wrong’, that is, something that the other, or others will disapprove of and as a result will be mean to you. Report the conversation to me best you can, paraphrased, in the form of he said/ she said. At one point in the conversation insert what you would have said if you weren’t afraid to say it.

*If you can’t remember such a conversation, next time you are in a group setting where you feel uncomfortable, think about my step 1 suggestion and pay attention to the conversation so that you can do this exercise.

anita

April 5, 2019 at 7:58 am #287673

Peter
Participant

Hi coconut
Read this mornings feature article and thought you might find it helpful.

I hope you find a way not to be so hard on yourself

https://tinybuddha.com/blog/you-dont-suck-at-life-how-to-stop-believing-your-inner-bully/

April 8, 2019 at 4:18 am #288023
coconut
Participant
@Peter: Thank you for sharing this article, I find it helpful.

@anita: Reading your last post, I realized that I don’t know for sure what my issue is and I need to understand it better.

I am a direct person, I am not afraid to tell someone if they crossed the line.

But when it comes to sharing my thoughts on a subject, my preferences or just…talk… I don’t like to share because I feel like they don’t really care enough.

When someone starts to make a conversation/talk to me… I just freeze. And I just listen.

I don’t want to make friends or go out. I want to not feel like I want to avoid people or conversations.

I want to not feel so stupid and inadequate and be clumsy. I want to walk and eat in public and be relaxed.
- This reply was modified 5 years ago by coconut.
- This reply was modified 5 years ago by coconut.
- This reply was modified 5 years ago by coconut.
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