why am I such an idiot?

I decided - because I'm a moron - to eat lunch with my coworkers today. And was silently comparing their lives to mine, how celebratory every little thing is to them, as opposed to how I try to ignore everything and feel like I've dodged a bullet when I'm forgotten about.

And now I feel like crap. And I feel petty. And, to be honest, I would be stressed out and hating every second of it if I did try to pull off their "normal" lives. But I feel really bad that I'm completely unacknowledged, too.

So - how stupid am I? Before I was kind of like, eh, but now I'm seriously down in the dumps. And I set myself up for it. Why do I do that to myself? I'm like a different species or something, I should just stay away from people, forget about interacting at all. Become a mute robot. I'm just too good at turning something as benign as eating lunch with coworkers against me - if I have any interactions of any kind, I must be trying to torture myself.

Oh, also - can't wait for the comments about how little I talked during their chatfest... If anyone even noticed I was there...

See, I really need to knock it off. But I've already pulled the trigger on my pinball machine and that ball is zinging around all over the place. Who knows which knob it will ping off next. Now I'll just have wait it out. Grumble, grumble.

Not much to say to this, except that you should consider therapy and psychiatric intervention. Have you tried or considered these options?

Edit: you're not a loser. but you are lonely.

Yep, done therapy. You know, until my therapist gets annoyed with how utterly hopeless I am for absolutely no reason and dumps me. Just started up with a new one. Which is probably why I made such an asinine choice. Just have to remember no good comes from trying to interact with people, and I'll be fine. Or at least I'll skate through a bit longer.

ck2d wrote:See, I really need to knock it off. But I've already pulled the trigger on my pinball machine and that ball is zinging around all over the place. Who knows which knob it will ping off next. Now I'll just have wait it out. Grumble, grumble.

I really like this analogy and I know what you mean. But I don't think you're a moron for trying to connect with your coworkers. You "challenged yourself" and you deserve a gold star sticker or a personal pan pizza. (Feel free to virtual-kick me in the face for that.)

Hate to tell you.. but that's progress and you have just successfully challenged Avie.

You defaulted Avie thoughts and replaced them with your own.
The afterthoughts is the avoidance in you trying to regain control of you trying to stop you from doing that again.
Trying to stop you from doing a everyday thing like lunch with co-workers.

NEXT lunch break.
Do the same again..... you can't... why not?
Something inside has told you not to---say hello to Mr Avoidance-- you got him and he can't hide anymore.

Mr Avoidance is always the first feeling/emotion/ thought you will hear- very consistantListen out to reconize him (very important) as soon as you can feel the his resistance you can default him.

So back to the lunch break, feel his resistance telling you not to go over there a second time, then default him, telling him "why not it's a everyday occurance, people do it and there is nothing wrong with MY decission"

During the lunch stay calm- staying calm is building up your threshold.

And wanna know if you made a impact on Mr.Avoidance?
When lunch is over he will be in your ear shouting at you (like in your opening post- Trying to get his control back over you)
Think about the naughty child who yells the loudest to get your attention and have you play to his rules (mr. Avoidance)

Cut the thoughts with soild reasons of why, such as it's lunch time and I had lunch with friends.

While this sounds like a lot of work, bit by bit it becomes second nature.
Your lunch break will give you growth, everyday work on it- listen to the negative pull- override- stay calm- followed by a solid reason to chill the after thoughts.

Everyday watch the growth and hick up's along the way, let us know I more than happy to maybe show you another way to look at it.

I started off at a coffee shop with Mr. Avoidanc telling me I wasn't allowed to go in and how I won't get the right coffee my voice will fail, people will stare.. oh and the world will end!

ck2d you have started.

^ My thoughts exactly.

The problem is with having strangely high expectations for the level of effort you put in, it's like any other skill, you won't 'try' once and magically be an amazing capable social being with no hardships, like you won't get a hole in one the first time you try golf, you'll be lucky to hit the ball a short distance and you might even miss entirely but missing the ball is part of learning the skill, just like making an attempt at being social even just being there sitting with your workmates at lunch and not saying much is a part of your personal road to success.

You can't expect your recovery to be easy, it's going to be hard, you're going to have unpleasant experiences before you start having the nice ones. Even when you are functionally normal you will have unpleasant experiences sometimes, but so does everyone else.

ShadowTerra wrote:

ck2d wrote:See, I really need to knock it off. But I've already pulled the trigger on my pinball machine and that ball is zinging around all over the place. Who knows which knob it will ping off next. Now I'll just have wait it out. Grumble, grumble.

I really like this analogy and I know what you mean. But I don't think you're a moron for trying to connect with your coworkers. You "challenged yourself" and you deserve a gold star sticker or a personal pan pizza. (Feel free to virtual-kick me in the face for that.)

In elementary school we had this reading program called book-it. If you read enough books you would get a free personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut. Had a pin too that they would put little stars on it. Needless to say, best program ever.

So, my coworkers just brought me a cake. At 11 AM, because that's when it fit their schedule, and they made sure to tell me that. Still, it was nice for a second.

Until they asked me what my plans for the weekend are. Um, my plans are, I took tomorrow off because I have 2 appointments for my son. I thought I did a really good job of just spitting it out and saying nothing more, didn't try to fill in that dead space humilliating myself. And of course, they started chatting about the next inane thing. And when they looked at me again, I asked for an update on a project someone was working on. Really lame, but again, decent diversion tactic.

Also - very proud of myself for not throwing up. Still have a very painful knot in my stomach. Oh, well, if that's all the damage I'll take, I say I got out of it in pretty decent shape. And, yes, I know I sound like a totally unappreciative b*tch. That's life in the fast lane.

Also - now that I've left the room, I can hear them guffawing from two rooms away. Keep thinking, of course, because I'm a self-centered b*tch, that they're laughing at me. Yep, time to go hide in my hole again.

Wow, I thought I was the only one feeling like this.
This is totally relate-able.

In my last job I ended up eating all my lunches at the desk, while pretending to be too busy for chit-chat. The truth was that it was torture for me to try to relate to the energy from all the "normal" people...

It's a damned shame that some of us has to feel like this.
I've tried every medication there is and gone to therapy since I was around 17, now I'm 40 and still can't cope with other people very well.
This makes me lonely, depressed and generally f*cked up in the head.

I know you posted this years ago and hope you're doing well, but for what it's worth, your post is the most relateable thing I've ever read on here or anywhere else really.

If I don't go to lunch with them, i'm setting myself to up be a social pariah (not that i'm not one already) and they'll never want to be my friend if because I rejected them, and they'll resent me for being too quiet and boring. but if i do go to lunch with them and invariably won't be able to contribute to the conversation and end up just sitting there taking up space, and they'll resent for me for being quiet and boring anyway. either way, i'm too quiet and boring, but at least in on scenario they don't have to watch me be quiet and boring.

my therapist gave up on me too. she said i wasn't trying hard enough.

anyway, thanks for posting.