Whenever I talk or interact with people I feel I don’t talk like a “normal” person would nor I feel other people’s feelings towards me are positive.
Their interactions with me seem always cold and superficial and it’s not their fault. I told that to my psychologist, even asking whether I may be autistic or suffer from other conditions. She said I don’t, but heavy neglect affected me when I was a kid and it’s not possible for me to become like others, I can just work on myself. The problem is that I don’t know how to work on this. I really wish for somebody to point out evey mistake I make when I talk to them so I can know what I’m doing wrong.
Sorry it’s probably just venting but I genuinely got tired of that.
If you talk like you post, I don’t see anything you’re doing wrong honestly.
Childhood trauma affect people in lots of different ways. Some learn to retreat inward, preferring to live in their own mind over learning to emotionally connect with others. This could look like autism on surface level, however autism doesn’t result from trauma and is accompanied with an array of other signs and behaviours. If you’re still seeing a psychologist, try to work towards opening up your early experiences, especially how you remember your attempts to cope with the world. This is not easy of course but it could help to see yourself as an object of curiosity. Also keep in mind that it is hard to find a therapist who feels right to connect and open up to, even for the average person, so this might be more challenging for you. I hope this helps a bit.
I’m wondering if your social group has something to do with it. Usually social circles have very distinct habits and patterns of behavior so this might be related.
That said, if not, it could be more of a perception but it could also be real.
And then the question is what can you change, and what should you change.
I have autism, so I empathize with the inability to see yourself from the outside and to understand how much and in what ways behaviors affect others - but I’ve also learned that if you have friends, you can always ask them about it, and if they’re good friends, they will give you useful pointers. More useful than random people on the Internet anyway.
So either it is they way you act or perceive things, which is stuff you can work on, or it’s a pattern of a specific friends circle, and that means maybe you just express yourself very differently and therefore it’s hard to relate to them.
Anyway I wish you good look on figuring it all out and as someone who is constantly trying to improve, I’m sure if you take a hold of the root cause, you’ll quickly adapt :)
I think i feel the same way about interacting with people. Didn’t they point out any ways to work on yourself or at least recommended a next step? I would expect this as the main outcome of going to a psychologist.
I ask, because i never went to a psychologist.
I didn’t suffer from neglect, but until i was 15, i had lived in 4 different countries. We actually kept rotating those countries all 2 years.
On one side this made me a very open minded person and it was an experience i enjoyed, but on the other hand, i think it made me miss the step of creating meaningful, deep relationships in life.
Everything i knew was living in constant flux. Meet and say goodbye again.
From my 30s on i noticed others relationships and that people interact in a way I’m not used to or know how to deal with.
I also don’t know how to work on myself with this.
