Does everybody judge themselves harshly?

[Awkwardteeth]

I re-play conversations over and over.
I dissect my social interactions.

I find so many examples of when I almost certainly unintentionally come across as insensitive, or cheeky, or crass, or flippant, or uncaring, or bitchy... and so on.

I have convinced myself that other people can’t possibly genuinely like me because of all the idiotic things I have said or done.

I see if I can think of any examples of things others have said or done that are similar, but I can’t think of a single thing. Other people seem to be nice all the time and never say stupid stuff or do stupid things?

So I don’t know whether I am genuinely a terrible person and/or a social catastrophe, or whether actually everybody has things come out the wrong way sometimes or says dumb things, but I just don’t notice it at the time so have no memory of it?

Does everybody do this? Does everybody kick themselves for stuff?

To give an idea what I’m talking about, today I am dwelling on:

I sent an email to colleagues with a new idea but now I wonder if it will be seen as implied criticism of the status quo and my manager will be offended.

Last year I was telling my manager about a meeting I’d had and I criticised the behaviour of a colleague and blamed her for why something hadn’t gone well. I hadn’t realised that my manager also line manages this colleague (although I would have been expected to know- it was just ignorance on my part) so I probably came across as such a cow. No ramifications for my colleague, it wasn’t anything major, but I probably came across as such a backstabby dick.

And there was the time when I was upset in the office last year and so I avoided eye contact with anybody in case I cried, but I think I probably came across as standoffish.

I torture myself with this stuff, and there is LOADS of it. I genuinely don’t know if I am a likeable person any more.

Yep, I've spent all week cringing at something I said to a teacher in year five.

@WhatWouldZenoDo my therapist said to me that if treated friends the way I treated myself I’d have no friends. That perspective did help somewhat

@WhatWouldZenoDo that's so true and like another poster said, no one thinks about others like we do about ourselves. We forget what others do far more quickly yet berate ourselves for so long.

I have this too. It's not the truth OP. I also find this almost extreme self-awareness gets worse when I'm tired. I would love to experience someone else's thought processes once, I think this is quite self-destructive.

I do. I often say stupid thoughtless things and I hate myself for it. I often get things wrong. I cringe really badly when I think about things I’ve said to people. So much it becomes like a physical pain sometimes.

Yes I’ve always done this to myself. Then I developed anxiety and had CBT to help with it.
I haven’t stopped doing it but CBT techniques have helped me to quieten it to stop the arising panic at times.
It’s something I have to work on, the more you practice it the better you get at it apparently.

www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200505/metaperceptions-how-do-you-see-yourself

I found this concept helped me a lot. The idea that how we see ourselves, how others see us and how we see how others see us don't always match up.

I found a much more concise article that split it into, I think, four dimensions.

These negative automatic thoughts are called reasoning biases, the way that you are perceiving certain situations is negatively biased. (There are several different types of reasoning bias, you can look up a list)

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy could be really useful in helping you to look at situations differently and therefore feel better about them rather than ruminating, worrying, and feeling so bad about yourself.

Omg All you posters!! I feel the same, everything you said! I replay and replay over in my head till i get a headache.. sometimes I cant take it anymore and i go over to the person and kind of apologises (some stupid thing most of the time) waaaay later in time that they are like "huh?"

I thought I was special kind of crazy 😔

I feel for all of you, its hell

I used to do this....it was exhausting. I went through a life changing incident a few years ago and it completely changed my outlook. Life is too short to worry about that other people think. If people know you they will understand where you are coming from.

I do this as well.

Thing is though, if you think that you are being harsh, then don't deep down you know that it's inaccurate? Or you at least think there is a possibility you are a nice person?

My first psychotherapist (!) said to me, tell me about a time that somebody said or did one awkward or embarrassing thing that changed your view of them from good to bad.

And i was stumped. I could not think of one single time somebody else had said something foolish, awkward, silly that had made me think badly of them

This only works to a point, I can't think of anything anyone has done but that's because they aren't me and aren't such a disaster. People bring up things all the time that I've said and done and laugh, so obviously people do remember and think badly if you are that bad.

I want to believe that others perceptions of me are that im wise, calm, patient, competent, appropriate, professional.

What i fear im not.
I worry that i overshare, say and do the wrong thing, make unbelievably stupid mistakes...
It would terrify me to know what people think.

What other people t&ink of me is none of my business. 😬

Like a previous poster I do this too but only the week before my period. I get totally introspective and worried about all these things. The rest of the time I have a much more level perspective.

I was watching the bbc trump documentary and saying just that @WhatWouldZenoDo - he’s a very extreme of the type of person who blames everyone else, which is actually quite a good strategy for self protection and something that seems to be more common in men (from my experience) and possibly often more successful, tenacious people because they quickly pick themselves up and keep going after a mistake. I’m the latter and blame myself to the point that it is very self destructive. I tend to find the more highly sensitive people do this, so I try to think of it as a symptom of a good thing because the world needs different types of people in it. But it’s definitely something I’m trying to work on - I’ve been that way since I can remember though so it’s difficult to change how you have always been!

I don't know if you're into books but if you are there's a fab book called "self-compassion" by Kristin Neff and would be well worth a read.

@Allthebubbles

Like a previous poster I do this too but only the week before my period. I get totally introspective and worried about all these things. The rest of the time I have a much more level perspective.

Oh yeh, im in a back to back pill but yes, i was so negative and hard on myself before my period 😭

@Wishing14 yes, for the person capable of projecting all blame outwards instantly, it's a great survival (in a business sense) strategy.

My mother is like this. When she is thoughtless, dismissive or inconsiderate and i try to tell her, she becomes so hurt by my accusation that she hurt me. She is now so hurt by me
It's like a magic trick.