Obsessing

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When I am in social situations even the most basic I will usually ruminate over the words I say or if I did anything I feel I shouldn't of done. This usually happens when I believe I am getting a negative reaction from the persons or person I was interacting with.

I start obsessing and my mind tears the "moment" apart and I try to decide if the person thought x of me and if they did will they think badly of me or did they even notice. This takes an incredible amount of time and energy. What do you do to stop the obsessing if you have problems with this symptom?

I rate every social situation between 0 and 10 when it is over. It seems to help bring closure. I don't know if this is healthy or not, but it works for me.

Oh I definitely get that way, but usually only after very important or very confrontational situations. My brain will replay the conversation over and over and over again, and I think about all of the things that I could have said or wished that I thought up at the time to say.

The only thing I can do is let my mind run its course. It eventually winds down and I find something else to focus on.

That exhaustion is one of the primary reasons I avoid making contact with others.
We just can't go out one night and not have it haunt us, even if we did well.

I used to do it all the time, sometimes I would try to plan conversations in my head in advanced to try to be socially acceptable. I was pretty messed up at that time though, it was my first big peak of depression and my anxiety was pretty horrible too.
Now I'm much better about it because I don't fear rejection from everybody as much anymore. I still don't trust males much though and some of those anxieties come back when I get into conversations with them.

I never could find a solution to that. I just accept that my mind is doing some weird s**t and wait for it to calm down.

I used to do that, believing that I could logically deduce the exact flow of conversations based upon the opening lines! Naturally, moment it deviates I'm suddenly in crisis mode...

haha, I still rehearse most conversations, either days ahead or only minutes. I used to think it was just daydreaming until I realized it was always purposeful. I occasionally obsess about past conversations, especially if I can't tell what people think of me. Sometimes I worry that I've insulted someone and then I have to rretrace the conversation to see what might have gone wrong....

Yep, do that as well. I think this is a good thing though, as it highlight underlying errors in both your standpoints, hence you can tell them next time you meet precisely where they've gone wrong.

Well, one day, I had planned out most of the day, and then the power went out in my school and obviously the topic was on that. I freaked out because I had all these conversations in my head and I couldn't use them. (sighs at my silliness)

Yes, very much.
The problem is that when I don't "over" analyze like that, I end up really screwing things up.
There was a point, after a great deal of therapy, when I stopped doing that, started dismissing "paranoid" thoughts that I was doing things wrong or that people didn't like me, started talking more and worrying less.

The whole thing ended up blowing up in my face because I was inadvertently offending people, so by brushing things off and not worrying, I compounded the offense. I guess by assuming that it would be paranoid to think that people were upset with me, I ended up seeming kinda flippant and disrespectful.

Exactly. Story of my life! And the conversations needn't be particularly important to be obsession-worthy.

And it's more than just the conversations or what I said or didn't say (or did I say it "right" or non-awkwardly) that torment me; I obsess about all the non-verbal stuff as well - did I do the right facial expressions, body responses, should I have hugged a certain person goodbye or not, was it too much, not enough, did my awkwardness show, and on and on and on.

Yes, exhausting! And I obsess over the most inconsequential crap, too, stuff that I'm sure realistically no one else even registers, much less thinks about. Even when I feel I've "done well," it comes at such an emotionally exhausting price I have no interest in doing it again.

And yet, I'm not particularly "shy" and I'm not afraid of people, nor do I care what their opinion is of me or my life. If I have something to say, I say it (and when I don't, I reeeally don't, lol). If I have business to conduct with other people, I have no problem doing so. It's just that social "performance" is so damn hard.

It is certainly tiring, but I actually find it strangely titillating... kind of like an adrenaline rush. I get hyper-excited thinking about it, in a sense manic. Then eventually I come down from that, and that's when the exhaustion can hit.

I would say that the "rush" helps keep me social. That and I feel better about the situation when I've told a bunch of friends about it (my extraverted side, no doubt).

Last edited by fiddlerpianist on 23 Aug 2009, 7:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I socialize rather well when I'm drunk. Then the next day I'm thinking "oh god, I feel ret*d now."

Wow! I've never agreed with so many people in all my life!

I've wasted lots of time dwelling on a chat I had and if the person was bored or weirded out by me and if I mistook their kindness. The ones that seem to have turned out for the worse haunt me for a long time.

I've also acted out a situation and gave different responses, I guess as a way of closure?

This is exactly what I do. ALL THE TIME! It drives me mad.
I'd give you some examples, but I want to finish before the end of the century.