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Social Interactions Sometimes Make Me Feel Pressured

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BlackbirdSinging

MyPTSD Pro
Do you ever feel pressured by social interactions? I do. I'm feeling it right now. I feel like since I'm depressed that sometimes I have to appear to others more lively and happy than I actually feel. I feel like if I don't have the response they're looking for they'll take it personally. So, I'll be really animated and smiling for as long as I can and then I feel like I can't anymore. Like the whole spoon thing. I feel like I run completely out of spoons. My phone will buzz with texts and I'll feel like "who wants what from me now?". I'll get all involved in something and someone will say something to me or call me or text me and I feel emotionally exhausted and even irritated.

It's one of the times I'll isolate. I want almost everyone to leave me alone. Don't text. Don't call. I need quiet. No more expectations. No more appointments phone calls or texts. No pressure. Just for now please, let me fill up my tank again. Please, let me pick up all of my spoons again. But, I can't say that to people. Most people would take that personally. And when it comes to my kids I'm the only parent they have. They're in their 20's but, they still need me.

The other side of this is when I'm done isolating and I look for the phone calls texts and conversations people have backed off and I end up feeling lonely and alone. How do you cope with this? What do you do when you hear your phone buzz with a text and your first response isn't "ooh I wonder who it is" but, instead it's "why?". What does this even mean?
 
I can relate to what you're feeling. It sucks. As lonely as I feel, I often get irritated or panicked when I get a call or text message. I isolate myself and avoid interacting with people because putting on an "act" is so exhausting. What's helped me with this is... being okay with being "imperfect", or being okay with vulnerability. It's not in my power to control what other people think, although I can influence it, but not always in the ways I expect. I want to feel like I can be myself (my whole self, not just the "socially desirable" aspects), and if people are going to reject me for that, I'd rather not interact with those people on a personal level - at least not regularly. I can relate to not wanting someone to be offended by my lack of animation - yet I find that people can pick up on the forced and performative nature of that. So ultimately my genuineness is more relatable, and allows me to connect with people who aren't feeling the need to perform or hide the spectrum of their experience.
 
i relate somewhat. I have tremendous social anxiety due to childhood trauma where, up until recently, i have felt intimidated and self conscious; where I am thinking that I have to be and say what i think the other person wants to hear so they will like me. Definitely from a small part of me who was always knocked down whenever she showed her own authenticity. i internalized that it was not safe for me to be 'me' and if i was, God forbid, somehow i would get hurt. Call me a 'people pleaser' on the surface, but it was really a survival skill. i learned to read people well and avoid all confrontation. Not a way to live. i am 50 now, with a husband and a 9 year old daughter and i am slowly learning that i do have a voice, i have a right to be here and i deserve my own self respect and love... it's a daily struggle to be true to myself and i, too, isolate rather than relate to others outside my family. it's a journey but i want to eventually have meaningful friends and contacts in my lifetime. Thinking of you today and I hope you can be gentle with yourself and forgive yourself for whatever, if any, shame you might feel. you are good enough just the way you are. We all are. hopetha2
 
I very much relate to what you shared. Its almost like when we are that depressed we only get two spoons a day and drive our self insane with choosing what to use them for.
I have learned I owe no one an explanation. That if they take it personal that is on them. It took a long time to put that in place..but it helps.
For some I would text and simply say I was on overload and would get back to them when I could.

Its about learning our limitations. On the days I could not string words together to make a sentence..well, what little I had was for me.
I learned I could not be present for others if I couldn't be present for myself.
Maybe you can find the book..Co dependant. No More..by Melody Beattie.
It helped me to understand boundries and that I didn't have to be present all the time.
Thanks for sharing. I feel many of us relate.
 
Relating. Although I loathe social interaction. Group = vile.
--- --- ---
Humans are herd or pack animals - we're built to be social. We continually evaluate our behavior based on the perceived needs and behaviors of others in our group, in order to prove/affirm that we are deserving of various survival assets - food, shelter, affection. If we don't think we can prove that - s.t.r.e.s.s.

The good: this trait kept our species alive, encourages cooperation in all disciplines, and has helped us achieve status as the dominant predator on the planet.

The bad: a small percentage of individual suffer for it. Like us.
 
I'm aware that I'm still in an awkward place between being symptomatic and figuring out more and more how parts of all of this journey work. My feeling pressured in this context isn't necessarily that I feel pressured to play a part for someone for fear of reaction. Which unfortunately in some cases I do have to do for specific people for survival sake have to play a part since the result would be far worse. In this context it's not due to a seeking of acceptance. It's not due to making sure everyone around me is happy with me.

My experience with this in this specific context is that sometimes I'm ok. No act no pretending. Just me like it or not. And then for whatever reason my depression intensifies and I feel like I need to isolate. And once that feeling comes in and someone interacts with me to share good news for example I know that they're waiting for me to respond like I did when my depression wasn't as intense. So, I try to be excited for their good news and respond the way I ordinarily would. But, with the intensity of the depression I've run out of spoons and I have to force myself to smile. After awhile it gets exhausting.

Eventually I isolate. And it's in those moments that the texts will come and I'll groan. A phone call will come in and I feel like I'm out of spoons for the conversation and I end up feeling a self imposed pressure. I think "they want you to be exuberant". And I feel empty. I know a lot of it would probably be resolved more quickly if I simply said "sorry but, I'm not very talkative today". But, I "should" myself into "ok common you really should perk up here".

I think I need to just say it to people sometimes and screw it if they get offended by my need. It's just sometimes when the depression gets like this even asserting myself with a simple statement feels exhausting. It's important to note too that today is an anniversary for me. And my brain remembers more than my conscious mind wants to. Ahh memories. A lot of them I wish I could just forget. Contrary to what many people without PTSD don't understand I wish like crazy I wouldn't remember certain things. I'm definitely not sitting around trying to.

But, I "should" myself into "ok common you really should perk up here".

This should say "come on" not "common". Typo courtesy of autocorrect :cautious::shifty:.
 
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Eventually I isolate. And it's in those moments that the texts will come and I'll groan.
Yes. Totally.

I'd go so far as to say that for me, I become almost phobic of my phone as my mood goes down.

Isolating is one of the things I keep an eye out for in monitoring my mood from week to week. The less I feel like I'm able to cope with people, the more I probably need to be basically forcing myself to get out there to try and manage the mood nose-dive. It's a balancing act between being gentle with myself, and acting in spite of how I feel.

And honestly? It sometimes requires the people around me to be pretty open-minded and understanding, because no, I'm not the same chatty, engaged, interested person that they knew 2 weeks ago. I become a shell of that person, and it's hard for people to understand that and forgive me for it.
 
I feel so guilty so much of the time for not being mentally able to 'be there' when other people need me.

I also figure that if they had to try and deal with me at that moment in time, they may run screaming, so maybe it's best they don't.

I honestly don't really know how to cope with it, but yahknow, just to let you know you are not the only one.
 
I'm figuring it out more and more today that this is being brought on this time by today being an anniversary. My brain remembers my body my system my moods my emotions react and my conscious mind wants to know what the f*ck just happened to my mood.

The other side of this happening due to an anniversary are starting. Here come the memories. Damn them. Here comes the good memories and the bad memories that are associated with today. And the grief the questions. The why him? Why did he have to end up being a perpetrator? I know it was from him being sick. And now he's gone. I mean he's literally dead.

The memories grief emotions confusion and my head hurts. I'm trying to not go too far into memories as they rise up around me like smoke and wrap around my ankles and my legs. I'm trying to hold on as the memories climb up me and start to cloud my eyes. I don't want to dissocate. I don't want to have a flashback.

And remember what I've learned in therapy. Come on I can do this. Feel the emotion. Name it. Let it go. Distract. Breathe. Tell the truth about what I feel. I hurt damn it. He hurt me. He struggled with his own battle and now he's dead. And I'm sad he's dead. I hate that he hurt me. I hate that he was sick. What could have been. What was. What happened. All of it in the past now.
 
I can relate to what you're feeling. It sucks. As lonely as I feel, I often get irritated or panicked w...
Yeah, I can relate. I see so many fake people and would never want to relate to them. When I see someone that shows their vulnerability, not fake acting!, then I can relate to someone like that.

There are many that attempt to fake the vulnerability of a real victim. But they come across so contrived and flaky it makes me ill.
 
I have found it quite helpful to slow down the social interactions. This is easier to do via text. I quite literally take longer to respond, consistently even when I am feeling okay because I know there will be times when I need more time to respond, and because I value consistency in my interactions with people I've decided its best to just take interactions more slowly all of the time. I give myself the space and time I need. Other people have learned that it may take me longer to respond, but when I do they will get a quality response. They have learned that lack of immediate response does not equate to lack of care or thought. And I have learned that too. It has helped me stay centered in myself. Thinking of you. Take excellent care.
 
I struggle with this a lot at work. I've never been particularly comfortable around others but I've been kind of forced to build up a social forcefield/employ my exemplary dissociative skills because part of my job involves supervising students. I come across as relaxed to other people (when I suggested I'm getting more mellow with age one of the students said "I didn't think it was possible for you to become any more mellow"), and I know how tough it can be to feel isolated so I try and get people chatting and joking and feeling at ease - not pressuring anyone either cause I know the rough side of that too!

Some days I don't want to talk to anyone and I just want to be left alone, particularly if something has set me off or given me intrusive thoughts etc. But I don't have anywhere to retreat at work and there's only me to supervise. Some of it comes from feeling vulnerable. But most of it comes from feelings of guilt. If I'm withdrawn and taciturn then the students will have a bad day too. If it's someone new they might not feel as welcome. I might hurt people's feelings if I don't laugh or join in the conversation.
 
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