Not Sure How To Connect With People When Minor Stuff Makes Me Lose Many Spoons!

[anonymous]

Actually, most 2 year olds can't/don't make friends, on their own. They're learning to make frien...

Hahaha this made me laugh! You're so right though. I will try to get back to basics. I think this is my problem. I am trying to do too much without having built up my skills again.

 

[anonymous]

I get it About loosing your spoons. A term used here frequently.
So lets work with that...spoons.
Do you...

I have been working on my list of spoons. I'm ashamed to admit to some of them. Yesterday I pushed myself way past my spoon limit and today I just slept all day. I know I have a spoon limit and I know I need to work with what I've got but I'm terrible at scheduling and budgeting my spoons. I will have to focus on improving in this area.

 

[ladee]

Try not to beat yourself up. That was the purpose of the excercise. To help you find balance and to be more aware.
Our healing work requires a lot of awarness. If others here had not pointed me in a different direction I would still be spinning my wheels.
Happy that you started the awareness. Things will change and you will have left over spoons to work on friendship.
You know how I know you will do great at this...because you asked for help and that takes courage!
Gentle hugs.
Baby steps, you can do this!

 

[Suzetig]

This pounded into my head that I must be perfect or people won't like me. So now when a flaw pops up or if I get even a hint that someone has a problem with me, I'm outta there like greased lightning.

This has been an issue for me too, and still can be if I'm having a bad day, am triggered or just a bit tired.

I need to never get anything wrong, or have needs or wants or anything close to making demands in relationships, and I need to be whatever the other person wants me to be, perfectly. And if I miss any of that, or think I might have missed it, it feels life threateningly dangerous, so I respond by fight or flight. I don't know your background but for me this was borne out of parental relationships that were very frightening, violent and unpredictable where I grew up thinking all relationships are like that.

So, I've been known to have a complete meltdown because someone couldn't do something I had asked them to, because in my head they couldn't do it because I should never have asked (so got it wrong). Or because someone asked me to do something differently, or because I couldn't find a freshly laundered dish cloth for them (seriously), or they wanted a particular kind of tea that I didn't have... you get the general idea.

Now if I find myself having an emotional response that doesn't correlate to the actual situation, I know I've been triggered, so, instead of hitting the destruct button, I'll take some time out, try to ground myself, cry, whatever but I don't act on my feelings with the other person until I'm grounded and know what it is I'm actually responding to.

I wonder if your relationship stuff might be triggering you too without you even realising it? It took me a long time to recognise that's what was happening for me - as in 2 years in therapy - but once I realised that was it, I've been able to treat it like every other kind of trigger and things have got easier in terms of relationships.