Ignorance is bliss?

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I get depressed and anxious often and oddly enough, I attribute this to how I have become better at the social aspects of life (from when I was younger.) Of course even now I'm no social wizard. I still often say things before realizing that I've seriously offended someone and then of course I feel bad and this is exactly what I mean. I worry so much now about things that I do and/or may be doing wrong that I begin to feel depressed and anxious on a consistent basis. When I was a kid, I was completely oblivious to the world outside my own head. I remember a time when I didn't know about this external world of other people's emotions and while, yes, it is a good thing that I've learned to recognize it, it turns out to be bad for me often because it just makes me worry. So I've been trying to determine two things: 1. If it would be possible to go back and re-teach myself to be more oblivious and 2. if I should attempt to do so, for the sake of my own happiness.

If anyone knows some other way around this problem please let me know. All I know is that things cannot continue the way they are, it is simply too much.

I don't think it would be possible to re-reach yourself. What you have done is achieved personal growth and you can't really unlearn that, besides it's a good thing. You've become better at something and consequently you are more worried about offending people, but the way I figure it is that your next stage of personal growth will be to challenge and overcome the worry associated with possibly offending someone at some point in the future. You should Google "how to stop worrying" and see if any of the sites that come up have any tips that would be useful to you.

TLDR: Don't take a step back, focus on how to stop worrying.

Thanks for the tips, I'll go see if I can find anything useful on google. I know I've gone forward and going backwards sounds unproductive but sometimes life is so hard that it seems easier if I could once more be unaware of all the things that now worry me and cause anxiety in my life.

I know exactly what you mean. When I was in elementary and middle school, I was never worried about what people think and was more myself. But since I went into 8th grade I became more conscious of how I act and it seemed like it made socializing much harder. I sometimes felt like I missed a lot of good opportunities and relationships if the nervousness was removed. However it's possible that some of the nervousness and cautiousness may have helped me make some good friends I had because being not so cautious may have caused me to say something and stop one of those relationships from forming without even realizing it. I agree with what the previous person said though too. Take the next step in learning how to now overcome the fears. Even though you weren't aware then, you still had the fear thoughts ready to be tapped into at anytime (and probably a worse time) which in now you can remove as a result of being aware of it.

I think ignorance is bliss. I'd rather not know about what is going on around me. I just wish I was intelligent, and got wrapped up in my own life too much to care about what other people are doing and how brilliant their social lives are. Getting hints of something, though, is worse, because part of me wants to know, yet I fear to find out. That can cause depression and anxiety, leading to stress. I'd rather not know at all, without any hints, then I will have nothing to worry about because you can't worry about what you don't know.

Ignorance is bliss when you're acting like a complete idiot, and you have no idea. I do this a lot. Realizing it later, and then obsessing about how what everyone thinks about you is a nightmare lol Hey I'm gonna go think about the same three seconds of a social interaction I had three days ago over and over until it mysteriously goes away like a bad case of hiccups.

Worrying is what can potentially screw things up for you, as worrying can become very addictive...I've seen this with many people on the spectrum. You can solve your problems without becoming oblivious, and there's likely not a way back to your childhood state because your experiences as a person have simply changed and shaped you too much to be able to retreat back into that state.

What you could try doing is participating in therapies to limit your worrisome thoughts (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Mindfullness Therapy are both useful), or you could see a psychologist who may assist you in sorting out these thoughts in a better way.

True dat.

You really have to recognize that there actually is no "wrong" or "right" and go from there. In order to achieve this, you need to surround yourself with people who understand that the societal framework, the mainstream social demands are a construct and that not everyone is able to live up to them. There are ways to get around them to succeed in life, but these ways can be highly individual and can only truly be learned through mutual self-exploration with like-minded individuals.

It makes you wonder how much of all this is a disorder, and how much is like being left handed in and right handed world.

This might be too much trouble, but it can help to ACTUALLY find out what other people are thinking by studying up on it. I study symbolic interactionism and this tells you what people's internal reactions are when you do or say a wrong thing. Some of the books even tell you what the likely response reaction to something is.

For example, if you're talking for too long and someone else wants you to stop talking so they can leave, they will stop making eye contact with you and angle their body away from you, and/or step further away. If they want you to say more and they don't want to go away, they'll keep looking at you, keep their body angled toward you, and will continue responding with encouraging sentences to show that they are interested and understand you.

Erving Goffman is the author I would recommend, but there are lots of books on this, and even some that were written fairly recently.

Agreed. But again, so are many other things that are considered by the mainstream to be "disabilities", like ADHD or deafness, are different ways of being with which, under the right circumstances, people can thrive. It's all a matter of perspective.

I'd agree, for the majority of the population, especially those who spend too much time watching reality shows or soap series on TV, ignorance is bliss.
They're just not aware of their ignorance because they are not able to comprehend how small their own world compares to what's really going on in the world. It's not just a case of "what you don't know, can't upset you", it also "what you're incapable of understanding, can't upset you".

As the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer once wrote,
"Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only by the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point"

Interesting, I never thought of deafness and blindness.....their differences are pretty stark and easy to identify, maybe there is an emotional reaction like "wow, seeing this person is very different than what I'm used to" but they are completely capable of communicating. A deaf person maybe not be able to hear you, and their speech may be "awkward" when you are trying to hear them, but imagine writing notes back and forth for example, sharing eye contact while understanding the ideas.....