So... I struggle heavily with anxiety, including generalized anxiety and social anxiety. And... it is suspected I am on the autistic spectrum, plus my OCD-like tendencies make it very difficult for me to get out of my own head sometimes and really interact with others or socialize, and... I have been told I come across as very self-absorbed and I seem to be rude a lot when I don't mean to be, I don't even realize I am being that way at first, and I seem to have a way of making other people angry and or coming across as a user.
Thing is though....
I guess the point I really want to get at here in this thread is....
For some reason, I cannot seem to shake this feeling of rejection, a lot, when it comes to interacting with other people.
It's almost like... if I say something, or do anything at all, and the other person gets offended, I take it as a rejection. Like they are somehow a personal threat to my own self-identity, because they aren't going with my flow or acting as an extension of myself.
I also seem to have a problem with the fact that different people think differently, and that each person has their own distinct personality. It could be that for some reason, I have never had a solid/distinct set of opinions or identity (Every time I sorta try, someone somewhere finds a way to shatter it by introducing their own opinions that make sense as an alternative viewpoint, or I just can't seem to stay consistent even unto myself),
It's almost like... I latch onto people easily just because they are friendly or nice up front, hell I'll latch onto almost anyone or anything really, within reason, to the point where I'll be very open and trusting... but then it starts to turn out they aren't what I thought, or they'll see something in me that they don't like, and I will feel betrayed, like... that person either NEEDS to change to be the way I imagined them in my head, or I will wish I had never met them.
Very immature and unrealistic attitude, I know.
Just... For some reason, I think I see people having different opinions from me as a form of rejection, like... they either need to change, or I need to change to be like them.
I find that people setting boundaries feels like a rejection, even if they aren't actually rejecting me.
I find that if someone hurts my feelings, it feels like a rejection.
I find that if someone isn't willing to sit down with me to talk about something, even in circles, even ten or twenty times, until maybe i can get my emotions acknowledged and maybe get whatever kind of apology or acknowldgement I NEED from them... I feel rejected and hurt.
I also find that communication is so, so hard for me. With some people, especially those who only want to talk about something once and then "put it in the past", particularly if they have a lot of other things on their plate and a full-time job and whatnot, it seems like there is only a very, very brief window of opportunity to address an issue while it is fresh, and then they forget it and move on... which also feels unfair, because if you have social anxiety and a lack of experience at responding to problems when they are fresh, you get cheated out of an opportunity to do anything because the other person moves on way too fast.
And that is also a form of rejection.
....I dunno.