Need to stop taking things personally

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I have a tendency to internalize everything that happens to me as being my fault and/or responsibility. The stress eats at me. I know that for the sake of my own health, I need to separate myself from others' opinions. It is easier said than done however. Does anyone have any strategies that have worked for them to stop taking things personally and to heart? (This especially a problem for me at work. I get stressed out by department issues that are really not JUST my issue. When friends/family get upset with me for being my self, I get so worked up that I am on the verge of being suicidal.)

I have that problem as well. If someone is upset about something in my presence then I automatically conclude that they are upset with me and get upset. I believe it is my inability to discern the difference between someone venting to me and someone being angry at me. Even if they blame someone else I still often get confused if the person they are mad at has a connection to me.
Then there's the times the person really is angry with me because yet again I made some social faux pas which of course upsets me.

Just last week I had another incident of someone getting upset with me but this time it was it was an online friend. I play World of Warcraft with her, I've never even seen a photo of her but when she got upset at me the other day over an innocent misunderstanding I was quite upset. It threw me into another "no one understands me and I don't understand anyone"loop. I'm still in hermit mode.

I just read this article: Psychology Today: Nuts and Bolts of not taking things personal
I'm going to try to do what it says, to reinterpret what people say to me when they're upset and see if that doesn't help. I always find all this complex social interaction trying on my brain but I think I can learn to some degree to deal with people better even if it will never be second nature.

I've also got to learn how to do that. I've found that out over the past two days. I took something that some member said about me seven years ago and I took it personally last night and this morning. I've got to stop doing that.

I don't really have an answer but want to say I have that problem too, or that is what people tell me. But the question I can't get an answer to is: How am I supposed to "take it"? Tori I will read that article.

Scubasgirl are you a scuba diver? If so, does your doctor who gave you a medical clearance know about your AS? The PADI form says nothing about autism but I at first had a hard time getting a doctor to allow me. Then last year, my doctor changed and I did not tell them. I have my certification last year. But I wonder if actually autism or AS is a no-no.

It's good to know I'm not alone in this. It's probably the hardest of my AS symptoms for me to deal with. I think I might need a tattoo on my hand with that quote from the article on it

No, I'm actually not a scuba diver. My husband's nickname since high school has been "Scuba". Not because he is a scuba diver either, but his name is Steve and his friends thought that it was pretty funny to call him scuba when the movie Big Daddy came out. He liked it and kept it through college as well. When trying to think of a clever name for myself that had nothing to do with any of my other online alias', Scuba's Girl, came to mind and became truncated. So that is the really long and random story about my name on here.

How can one be immune to the action of others, if someone takes out a gun and shoots someone I suppose the victim should have become immune to bullets beforehand. That is an extreme example, but point is I doubt its even humanly capable to be entirely immune to other peoples actions. Opinions have a better chance, but then some opinions like 'all (insert certain segment of population) are worthless and should die' are inevidably going to bother some people and rightfully so. Why because most people have emotions, also if it bothers people they are more motivated to oppose any action based on those opinions.

Even if their actions are about them and their perceptions and whatever, that doesn't mean they can't effect other people.

I wonder if the person who came up with that quote is immune to all actions from others yet. I've always hated that quote, figured I'd try and explain why.

Actually, I agree with Sweetleaf. I'm not entirely in agreement with that quote either. Perhaps it's out of context.
What I did like about the article is suggesting we learn to get in the habit of analyzing what the person's motives are for what they said that hurt you. Maybe 1) they didn't mean to hurt you and worded it poorly 2) You misunderstood what they meant 3 )maybe they did mean to hurt you, but why? And that it's more a reflection on them than you.

I think that quote only works on the communication/relational level, and not intended for application at the bullet (physical) level. And, I do think the emotions would still kick in initially to feeling verbally attacked but hopefully at some point you can compose yourself enough to assess the situation better. This may be harder for people with mindblindness seeing I usually haven't a clue what NTs are thinking. I may have to just settle with realizing that there's probably something else going on beyond what they're saying that hasn't anything to do with me personally.

Scubasgirl, I could have written your post! I know what you mean. Then it just goes round in circles.....

If something should go awry with, say, a lab instrument (yep, it happens), then I can reason out why and either resolve the issue or re-route the problem.

But what if I'm mistreated? I can know what they have said/done to me is based upon their own false beliefs, cruelty, self-motivations, etc. but I am powerless to fix it! Cannot recalibrate a human!! ! I know, I've tried!

Putting that into perspective is hard and I've been hurt so badly at times that I am truly beside myself. I really like the above posts (& that picture - thanks MjrMajorMajor). I think having a sense of humour helps to put it all into perspective.

Well, I think the point is learning not to care what they said hurtful about you because you know it's not true.
I'm still reading on this topic. This was another good article: http://www.carolchanel.com/article2.html

Im a bit surprised, if you age is correct you still have this problem.

Maybe everyone doesnt learn to ignore stuff like this.

I was like this, at a certain point, i just didn care anymore. Its actually really important to learn to not care about everything, i might be to much over to the do not care about anyone. but thats another story.

I know i have limited mental energy cant go around wasting it on pointless stuff like this.

I remember i would go around apologizing for everything. It was quite crazy, i see that today.

Maybe its something you can get help to or something, its definitely not viable, because it can lead to all sorts of bad stuff, stress, depression.

Importantly, when one receives serious mistreatment such that it radically impacts one's work/life, then we cannot 'just ignore it'! Example. being wrongly fired from a position by a bigot/bully cannot just be ignored. Being bullied to the extreme causes PTSD and the treatment is expensive/extensive and painful. I personally have witnessed Aspies on this forum who have incurred harassment, even assault, due to another's mistreatment. This then becomes a legal matter and cannot be ignored.

For four decades I have tried not to take it personally, and I still can't get it to work. Actually, I can't see how it should be possible. If someone stabs you in the hand, you can't just tell yourself not to feel pain, and then it won't hurt. It will hurt regardless of whatever you try to tell yourself. So how should emotional pain be any different???

I try and devalue the person who's said whatever it is that's bothered me in my mind as in, "Who are they? They are not more important than me so their opinion is not more important than my own"

I do take things very personally but I find that logically I can dismiss things as being the result of the other person being ignorant or nasty. I will imagine what if that person thought I was fine, what would it be like being their friend? and I realise that it would involve having to listen to them endlessly judge and cristicise others in an unpleasant way and who on earth would want to be around a person like that?

I still remember all the bad things people have done to and said about me in excrutiating detail but I know that thinking about these things is a form of self-torture and if I feel bad from thinking about it, it's essentially my own fault as I could dismiss it and think about something more pleasant/interesting instead.

I take mental notes of the fact that however perfect a person seems to be, however successful, they will still have problems with other people ie it happens to everyone in some form or another, not just me