I dont suppose any of you would like to join the socially awkward society I am going to start?

[MumofTrioTrioIwanaTrioIwant1NW]

free membership Or is it just me?

Am annoyed at myself for being socially awkward (several instances today in company),

I do try thats the annoying thing I just dont seem to be able to be anything else! pah!

Please come cheer me up somehow

Mitochondria, in what way do you think you are like wallpaper? Hovering in the background not saying anything, or just being a bit boring when you do say something (or c: None of the above)?

I actually looked up mitochondria in the dictionary - wanted to know what it meant as I didn't have a clue

laser mitochondria I always edit/delete/edit! doesn't everyone? takes me all day to write an email sometimes, and it's better for it. writing is not an easy task, harder still is getting your thoughts across to others, thoughts that you hold so dear and are so personal. People get paids lots to this well.

Laser, habitual ways of thinking even if from childhood can be altered. they feel automatic and immutable, but belive me things can feel different, with a little pracitce. you'll get there.

i'm beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. couselling has helped a lot. like pointing out that things are habits and can be changed to new habits.

other things counseller said; well she just made the odd observation/comment, which didn't seem much at the time but after digesting, has helped me to frame things in a better way.

like... i told her about a toddler party i was anxious at and worried about what the other mums thought about me. she said imagine there are several cameras in the room. the angle i'm looking at is all about what i think i did worng. imagaine different angles (eg what i did right, what others did etc). i let that sink in over a couple of weeks and its helped.

At the same event, I thought i'd said something which unintentionally came across as sounding bad about someone's child and felt really bad about it. she asked me whether anyone had indicated this to me. i said no. did the child mother's indicate this?. i said no. i then realised how much is in my head.

i mentioned another time when i said someone was definately offended by somethig i said but i hadn't meant it to come across that way. she said 'why does it matter?' i said 'they wont' like me'. went away and thought about this. do theyreally not like me because of one silly comment? and if so, so what?.

laser - depends what mood I'm in - if i'm on a downer then I will post very little, as will feel I have nothing interesting to say.

greenhippo - I feel very beige really, one of life's observers.

Laser - I hover. Usually leaning against a wall.

I also do a lot of lurking (on threads I mean, not in a sinister sort of way).

I know the feeling, Total - I said earlier in the thread that my 'thing' for a long time has been feeling invisible.

I think lately it's not been as bad; I seem to have developed some strategies and a kind if persona which enable me to get by without feeling too much like I'm making a fool of myself.

But I still always seem to be the one people could take or leave and I don't know how to get beyond that.

I think sometimes it's a matter of pride - it seems to be such a heinous admission these days that you feel you lack friendship, and I'd hate people to think that of me and feel either pity or scorn.

Think I should go to bed - I'm getting maudlin!

Still here, still reading

wanders in, shuffling feet<

having a whole new wve of fretting.

DD loves socialising, loves other kids, and I think really needs to go out and see them.

I hate socialising with other mums because of the worry that DD will be naughty. she isn't often (though she is toddler, and behaves like one) .. and there are two mums on my street who are really nice, and have toddlers similar age. so, i ahve he motive and the opporunity... but i just seem incapable of socialising without saying things i kick myself for afters.

Playgroup tomorrow. bugger.

Pah, Mitochondria! I've read your posts before on other threads and thought you OK. And the same for TotalChaos and, well everyone, really.

I also lean on walls, and fret about what to do with my hands. I end up twiddling my hair, which falls out - the house looks grubby with the patina of hair over everything, like we have a moulting bison for a pet.

Ever since the term Norma-No-Mates was coined, I've wondered if any of the people who use it have ever truly considered how deeply traumatic it would be to feel it applied to you. Wouldn't things be bad enough without feeling mocked to boot?!

This is version #55, still not happy with it

can I ask a question to you all?

were you bullied, I was and I wonder, no I KNOW it greatly affected me and still does - BUGS ME endlessly that it still leaves me scarred as if the bullying stold something

I nervously twiddle my hair too

Have done it since I had hair my mum said

thanks laser. yes, school time was horrible re:bullying and more subtle social exclusion. still have recurring dreams about loneliness. at school.

I have nightmares about school too

I was just wondering if ALOT of us had been bullied and whether it had stunted our social growth as it were really as I so quickly revert back to what I was like at school - oh and my acne didnt help as I felt insanely ugly/deformed too

Just found the thread.

I was bullied at school and it has had a massive effect on my life. I'm terrible in social situations.

Hi Mcole, welcome to the all inclusive fold

May I ask how you think your bullying has affected you? x

EnglandAllenPoe, you get out there and talk to those mummies! (think blustery jollity rather than hectoring tone) Naughty tots are a good topic of conversation for there is always plenty of scope. We all know it bothers you more that you might say something you regret than that DD will be a scamp.

I did get bullied - by stepfather, fellow pupils and occasionally teachers. Oh - and at work too. Can only imagine I must be incredibly annoying in some respects. The work stuff was only really in the form of subtle snide remarks that make you flinch, which isn't as bad as school bullying. (At least at work you're getting paid, which is something) These are generalised comments, as I wouldn't want to upset anyone who had been bullied horribly at work - I'm just saying IMO the school/college bullying is in a different league.

i didn't like school either.
was bullied (but only for a short time when in recption class). but always felt a misfit in school and terribly anxious when there. was same at uni and at work.

Hurray, we're all still here! I haven't been on MN for a few days and was worried our thread had died a death.

I was thinking about the bullying situation, and I think it has contributed to how crappy I am in public, but was also caused by it. I moved to a new school when I was 12 and again when I was 14, so pretty bloody hard ages to make new friends, and my mild shyness got really bad from then on.

The worst things that stick in my head are not bad physical bullying, but still make me feel tearful 20 odd years later. Once we were lining up and the group of girls next to me were joking about something, I was by myself as usual and was doing my awkward smiling and they started copying me and saying "What are you laughing at, Dunbreedin? This is our joke, not yours". God, it sounds like nothing written down but at the time I was crushed - didn't cry but only just.

Around the same time we moved up a year so moved classroom and had to organise where we sat in the classroom, and I was left sitting by myself on a table while everyone else was in their groups of friends. That was pretty bloody horrible

I hate how being shy is perceived by people who don't understand. It's not something you can change without a massive effort, and maybe not even then. It has basically ruined any chances I had for a proper career - I dropped out of A-levels because I felt so worthless and alone, and I know that I have never reached my full potential. I've never known what I want to do, and was always too afraid of talking to people to find out what the choices open to me were, and that is the one huge regret of my life.

Even though I went to college and got a professional qualification (NNEB), that was basically because my mum organised it for me - tired of me sitting up in my room I guess. It wasn't what I wanted to do, but it was ok - I find children easier than adults!

I would highly recommend reading Overcoming Low Self-Esteem by Melanie Fennell. It's a CBT based book but has helped me tremendously.

It has a section on how low self esteem develops, 99% of the time in childhood (bullying, neglect, abusive childhood etc)and lists the experiences that contribute to it. It discusses the biased perception and interpretation we apply to ourselves but which continues to keep the low self esteem cycle going. There are exercises for you to complete and I particularly found (although difficult in the beginning) challenging my self critical thoughts really helpful.

I think for me reading why I feel like I do has been a real comfort and stopped me feeling quite so different and alone.

dunbreedin - that's exactly the sort of incident that happened to me at school. after about 14 I gave up talking at school, for the most part, as I felt nothing I had to say woul interest people. I did have the odd friend in different years at school, and a few friends outside school, so I wasn't totally isolated, but it was still pretty miserable. Uni was brilliant, thankfully,- plenty of geeks and misfits , tbh it was the happiest time of my life, where I found a culture of acceptance.

thanks for the book suggestion - hubba.

I think it's a bit chicken and egg with me and social stuff - I think that because I give off wrong signals due to my poor eye contact/social awkwardness, people are less inclined to warm to me, which exacerbates the situation.

hubbabba, thanks for the recommendation. perhaps with this and the counselling im having, I might have a real breakthough.

I think it's true that shyness and social anxiety has a lot to do with low self-esteem, and unrelenting self criticism. so if we can work on these things, new possibilities could open up.

dunbreedin, I know exacnly what you mean about careers. i also feel i didn't reach my potentional due to shyness etc.

totalchaos good for you re Uni! i really wish it had been like that for me.

when i was at school, i was expecting uni to be great and that there i would find acceptence and all would be brilliant. infact i was devestated to find the opposite. i found it an even more painful experience than school.

sometimes i feel i'm the only person i know who hated university in this way. I felt so crippingly shy and out of place.

the worst thing about school bullying is that i loved school, really, i loved learning and i loved absorbing informtiona nd getting good marks, but the bullying was hideous. i seemed to be impervious to it at junior school, as i did have friends (most of them were in other years during playtime, so i had people to protect me), but i still remembered nasty incidents.
when i got to seniors it got worse and worse and worse (even after i changed schools).
but i think i made it worse myself by being such a swot. at that age, you're torn between trying to get yourself a good education and trying to have friends.
most of the time i wanted the education, but that meant that any friends i could have had just never liked me.
plus, i always had the blurting out thing that so many of you lot seem to share!

the shyness gets worse if people notice it, and the more i tried to do to overcome it, the more the other kids seemed to hate me.

i just had a thought

getting over shyness and lack of confidence is hard work, right, but we can do it because we can work at it and it is important.
and then we get some friends and feel better about ourselves, right?

but then that means we're not misfits anymore, and we don't fit in with this group anymore.
it's not like the AA where you can say "oh, three years begin confident" because then people will go "yeah, you're not shy, stop trying to jump on the bandwagon"!

i used to feel the bullying from my past hung over my head like a 'don't be mates with me' sign - I always felt that if any potential new friend find out about it they wouldn't want to know me.
I think this is what led to a lot of the forced extroversion I practised in my twenties - in fact, I don't think I really acknowledged to myself it ad happened until after I'd had children.
It's true that bullying lowers self esteem, but it's also true that certain aspects of one's background cause low self esteem, so creating a target for bullies.
I had a very critical and sarcastic father in whose presence I shrank as a small child. I settled at school in spite of being shy, had nice friends and was happy to go, but when we moved house (I was nearly seven), the bullying started - I suppose in the form of mockery and exclusion; 'let's not be friends with her,' 'oh look, she's got poo on her face' (my birthmark), 'you have to go to the back of the line,' etc.
I never felt I could tell my mum as I wanted my parents to think I was popular so I kept quiet but felt so awful, particularly on Monday mornings - used to hope they'd forgotten about it and would be nice but no chance.
Tellingly, my mum revealed not so long ago that my class 1 teacher had called her in and said that I was always by myself at breaktimes; I was speechless with disbelief that no one had thought to ask me, and my mum said, 'well, I didn't know anything was wrong,' and it was just too big a subject to broach without falling out or getting really upset, so got buried.
Secondary school wasn't great - none of my close friends went and I was put in a class with girls from a different class in my old school, whose group I clung onto until one of them told me I wasn't in their gang because I didn't go out at lunchtime and buy chips!
Sorry this has got lengthy - thanks for letting me get that off my chest - will stop now.
I like the sound of that book - might order it. I've read loads of self-help books but they're more to do with depression, not focussing on what is probably the core issue.

I moved secondary school at 11 and 13, really bad times to try and make friends, made particularly worse when you are a good head height taller than everyone else. No physical bullying at all, just name calling etc from both girls and boys. Teacher goes out of the room, someone pipes up "what's the weather like up there Cole?", everyone laughs, I die. Boys weren't interested, all the other girls paired off at the school disco, I was sat on my own.

Uni was definitely better, I made a good circle of friends, but I ended up marrying the first bloke who showed any interest in me, literally the first, even though I actually didn't particularly fancy him. I had no self-worth and thought that he was the best I could do. I ended up wasting all of my university years with this one bloke who I actually didn't fancy. What a waste. Then when I started work I suddenly got loads of interest from blokes, which boosted my confidence enormously but I didn't know how to deal with it and I went completely off the rails. Divorce ensued, I feel so guilty about how I treated the poor bloke. I am in a fulfilling and stable relationship now.

Work life has suffered too because of my low self-esteem. I have never pushed myself forward and I have never really fulfilled my potential. Other pushier people with half my ability have done much better for themselves. I feel a bit lost work-wise to be honest, I look around at the people I was at Uni with and people I have worked with in the past and they all seem to have achieved more than I have. I'm stuck in an unfulfilling job and I'm not sure what to do about it.

But now I have DS who thinks I'm the most wonderful person in the world. It's a lovely feeling.