I’m socially awkward and I think everyone hates me.

6 comments

1. Kindly start replyying from here as I too have the exact same issue.

2. This sounds more like serious trauma and social anxiety disorder than something you can resolve with just a few tips.

   Have you ever done therapy? It could be very helpful to you.

   If you don’t have access to therapy, this page has some self-help stuff: [https://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/Resources/Looking-After-Yourself/Social-Anxiety](https://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/Resources/Looking-After-Yourself/Social-Anxiety) You could try working through the workbook, one module per week.

   If you do look online for self-help things, be careful because some groups target young people with trauma and/or social anxiety (e.g. TRP, MRA, extremist groups, terrorist groups, cults…) so it can be dangerous. Be aware of who is making the resource, what their qualifications are, and what their reputation is, and don’t believe everything you see even if the person writing it seems trustworthy. Take only the stuff that is actually useful and leave the rest behind.

3. I read “messy family and violent alcoholic dad” and I’m ready to give you my un-researched opinion. People don’t look down on you, you look down on you. In your formative years, you didn’t have a reliable family foundation to build your own self-confidence. Parents or guardians are supposed to inform children (“childhood” extends into teens) of how to treat themselves and others. You just missed out on that so you’re trying to build self-confidence without a foundation of love and support. None of that is your fault …but now it’s your responsibility.

   I struggled for a looong time all through my tweens into late 20s with self confidence. I always wanted to make people happy. I just wanted to be chill so people would like me and support me if I needed them. It was all false, though. People were nice to me and they liked me, generally but they didn’t _care_ about me the way I wanted (needed) them to. People _care_ about others with whom they make a _connection_. Being nice doesn’t make a connection. Being _yourself_ does. However, being _yourself_ also makes enemies.

   Here’s where things get tricky. In order to build self-confidence and work on caring for yourself, you are going to have to find something that you care about. Like a hobby or even a job, if you’re lucky. Most people don’t care about their jobs in that way but you could care about the way you do the job, even if it’s just stocking shelves or whatever. You can care about the work you do, whatever it is. The point is, you need to find something (not someone) that YOU care about. THAT will help inform you of what “care” actually is. Then you can start building off of that and teach yours how to care for yourself. Hope this helps. Good luck, big guy!

4. I’m 39 and have spent my whole adult life with severe social anxiety. Both my parents were alcoholics and so growing up I learned I had to behave perfectly (eg. be quiet, don’t ask for stuff, don’t need help, don’t show it when you’re unhappy with something – basically act like you don’t exist) so as not to cause any more emotional strain on the people I wanted to please most in the world. This became my personality instinctively, but when I became an adult this personality was like a flashing beacon for abusive people to come for me, and those were the types of personalities who felt familiar to me from my childhood.

   It took me a long time to realise that my ‘people pleasing’ personality was that of an abusee/victim, and I was just doing what I had learned to do subconsciously to protect myself from the possibility of attack or rejection, but by doing that I was actually encouraging abusive people to do just that.

   There is a whole other world of people out there who aren’t fulfilling either the abuser/abusee roles, they didn’t grow up waiting for the next bad thing to happen, they didn’t experience repeated rejection when they expressed needs, and they weren’t expected to just roll over and show their belly when challenged by other people in life. That realisation was a lightbulb moment for me.

   I could never understand why people who stood up for themselves and expected their needs to be met were liked more than me, when I let other people do and say what they wanted to or about me and I would never say anything for fear of causing a scene.

   People with abusive personalities are everywhere, testing others all the time. They’ll give people a little push, some will push back, some will stand steady and not engage with them, and others (like me) will fall over with the slightest nudge, so guess who the abusive personality is going to come for?

   Realising all of this helped me to realise that I wasn’t the weirdo with social anxiety that I thought I was – I was a victim of abuse and had spent my life in fear of the next painful attack or rejection. I don’t fall down now when an abusive personality pushes me, neither do I become the abuser and fight back, I state my truth and then stop engaging, my truth is not up for discussion anymore. I deserve to have my say and other decent human beings recognise that and support it fully.

5. It has been an uphill battle for me trying to maintain relationships. I often have a suspicion people are lying to me or humoring me just to appear nice. I try to remind myself that most people do not care what a person does if they are not in their circle or cannot affect their day. People are in their world and you can’t force yourself to be part of it. Keep putting yourself out there and accept the results.

6. Same:(