I obsess over past mistakes and faux pas, especially social ones. It starts with trying to understand how to do better, then(when I don't quite get it) it spirals into self-recrimination, blaming the other person, fantasizing how it might have been different and perfect, fantasizing how one day that person/group will recognize how they were wrong...... and so on. It would be fine if it lasted a week or a month, but I'm still obsessing over a disastrous schooling experience from more than a year and a half ago. I can't even remember much of what was said or what I said, but I managed to make all my classmates angry or nervous, and I felt like I never had a productive discussion after a while. I still lose sleep over it, and of course I can't change history.
When I think about this I suddenly realize that have always been obsessed with finding a way to predict what people will do and how they'll react, especially how they'll react to me. Maybe I should not care what they think or say.
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One eye opened slowly, green and gold as sunlight in the woods. The cat said,"I am what I am. I would tell you what you want to know if I could, for you have been kind to me. But I am a cat, and no cat anywhere ever gave anyone a straight answer."