Losing my social skills?

16 comments

1. Can you give more context please? Like did you start college and aren’t around people you know? Did you start a new skill or have a big change?

2. Stress and overworking can do that. If your mind is too busy you can lose focus in other areas.

   Give yourself some downtime.

3. I can definitely relate to this

   It’s possible that the lockdown and starting uni played a role in this change

   Have you considered seeking professional help, like therapy or counseling? It might be helpful in understanding and managing these social challenges.

4. Same here. In my case it’s due to stress and lack of light-earthed socialization.

5. Are you honest with yourself about your self esteem? Do you feel like you have to be someone else when you’re interacting with others (masking)? Is there anything you want to change about yourself that you feel would make you more interesting to others? Examples like gaining some weight, losing some hair, or an unfulfilling job? I know you said your at uni, are you involved in any clubs or have an interest in joining one? The pandemic and for other reasons might have caused some anxiety to develop that you might need medication short term to help with social anxiety. You may want to talk to a therapist and a psychiatrist or GP about how you are feeling.

   I searched out this forum because I feel a lot like you do. I fill in those pauses. Sometimes my sentences or explanations make sense to me but not to others. I moved and work from home. I know no one around here. I have social anxiety. It’s worse now after the lockdowns then it was before. I have no interesting hobbies. A couple months of not exercising and getting DoorDash has made me gain some weight. I’m self conscious and I’m making it into a problem before I even begin to spark up a conversation.

   I probably delved deeper into my problems than yours and I do apologize for that. I just wanted to say, make sure you are happy with yourself in as many aspects of your life as you can. Take a few moments to answer someones question so you might answer it more concisely. It’s okay to let to have that silence. It’s also okay to stumble. If there is nothing more to say, that’s entirely okay too. It doesn’t have to be awkward.

   Therapy does help, if you think that could help you to understand what’s changed and how to get back on your path again.

6. Idk but I am on the same boat. I feel like I can’t have normal conversations with my coworkers. Things don’t come out how I want them to and I cannot form sentences. It’s so awkward and infuriating at this point that most of the time I don’t even talk to anyone.

7. Ive had a similar experience. Im almost sure mine was due to the introduction of anxiety in my life. All it takes is one bad extended social experience and you become a whole different person on that front.

8. I did a sales job over the phone and my conversational banter was really good. I changed jobs and steadily got worse over a few years. My only advice is practice, practice, practice. It does fade if you’re not using it.

9. I feel this. Let me know if you figure it out. Actively working on it. The only thing that has worked with me was getting right with myself and finding my confidence to be who I want to be. Still a work in progress; wish you luck.

10. Yh happened. Just from lack of daily practice, being in a bad relationship and not prioritising others areas of life, going out of gym, moving past the friendship stage of not caring how popular or how many connection one have.

    But like any skills, social skills can be honed up again, the motivation is the hard part

11. Your age? Ok you started college recently? I feel that was my peak of schizotypic social exacerbation. “Sub clinical,” it’s not what grants me a psychiatric diagnosis so I don’t have schizotypal personality disorder but I self identify with it as a neurotype spectrum and believe it is the “background field” that sets the stage of my other issues (OCD, PTSD, depression, social anxiety, hysterical type of hypochondriacal pain, general executive function problems that I think are misdiagnosed to ADHD). Similar to autistic but with subtle differences. More severe social phobic in general. Ofc there are individuals for whom there are overlaps in subclinical autistic and schizotypal traits. Differential diagnosis with social anxiety disorder and related neurodevelopmental spectrum are challenging and unresolved issues even among experts in the field of psychiatry. Difference is possibly schizotypal traits can exacerbate or emerge as problematic in late adolescence early adulthood and will often appear to involve a broader executive function issues, the way you describe needing to give your all to form basic sentences is why I reached for it rather general social anxiety. Only a trained psychiatrist who does a full case history can tell you more. I’m just obsessive lay person with similar issues who has read a lot of psychiatric material.

12. A lot of grow up so similarly. Parents that allow bullying should be put in jail. Faculty too who don’t intervene. It’s not healthy and it’s “just kids being kids.” I don’t know if you know this saying “How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop.” That’s my safe way of saying how my cuts does it take for this rope to break. I’m speaking metaphorically, however sadly it’s real for too many others. When that cycle begins that young the licks begin. One at a time. As you grow up a lot of us get this idea that we are starting our adult lives with deficits. In the eighth grade I figured out a way I could graduate one semester early just so I didn’t have to see these kids for 180 more days than I needed to. Thinking ahead 4 years, not because I was smart but because I gamed the system. I cruised through not applying myself, not sufficiently learning English well enough to write a decent paper. I learned real quick in college that I screwed myself, having to take English 101, a total of 4 times in my college career and I was so happy to get a C the last time. This won’t be the first time I go off track but I’ll try to stay on point. Every so many years we had to take these standardized tests that didn’t count for school credit but kept the school system in check for not leaving kids behind. I got scholarships at 2 really great universities but they were far from home. I didn’t apply to either. They somehow saw my math scoring and just wanted me. My SATs for college was Math heavy as well and a mediocre English side. So I had an average SAT. To this day, I don’t get why a random guy like me was on their radar but I didn’t accept because I felt that I couldn’t handle being alone with no support so far away. I had lost that part of me in high school. I went to the local university, living at home. I went so credit heavy all that mattered was me getting that degree as fast as I could. The tuition was the same whether it was 12 credits or 18. And I didn’t take a summer break. I pushed English off until the last possible semester I could, otherwise I couldn’t move ahead in my program. I had school and work and I still made time for that club. Met some really great people and got me feeling better about myself. I lost my financial aid so I had no choice but to take a break and work more. And those friendships fizzled. I lucked out with getting hired somewhere that paid well for my rural area. I stuck with it because it was a skilled trade. Not like a plumber but it had a path. I now had work friends. I moved up the ladder, realized work friends weren’t friend friends. Except for that 1 guy who I mentioned had views I can’t support. I met him at that job. I started ignoring red flags and never really made any friends that were of substance and I had at that point a few more of those licks I mentioned earlier. I got in a bad relationship and felt that I deserved it and was lucky enough to have had it. Your parents have the same mindset as mine regarding mental health because people never talked about their feelings in their families. I had a learning disorder that was never caught until a psychiatrist saw me. I still was not taking classes. Life continued and more licks came about. I lost my job due to it moving 45 miles away. Had it not been through a big city with awful traffic I would have taken the job and drove it. I took the severance and something like a scholarship and went back to school. Fate knocked on my door the first day back at this community college. Someone had mentioned just getting a job I read about in the paper in that big city right in downtown. One tunnel was doable for double the money I had been making before. I got that same job easily. I finished the semester, again failing English. But who cares now, I can afford middle class things now and I was interesting to others because I worked in the big City. (If you were from America, you’d understand that I wrote that sentence while speaking hillbilly.) Those connections were as they say, for a season none were for a lifetime. I want to backtrack now to the clubs at school. They were the best thing in my whole life. Had I not made the time to participate, I wouldn’t have known what real friendships actually were. And I didn’t mask back then. My initial “cuts” were mending. (Couldn’t think of a way to mend a lollipop, lol) I don’t know when the mask returned but it’s never left since. I have regrets of roads not taken. My life could have been better or worse in Vermont. I’d have had different experiences. The real point Im trying to make is you don’t have to rush to get that degree. Make time for something extracurricular. Meet more people. Who knows, you might be able to unmask there and find friendships that could become lifelong. In hindsight, that’s worth more than a piece of paper and what doors it opens for you. It doesn’t have to be clubs but make time for hobbies or activities where you can be around more people of like mindedness. And as far as therapy, I googled real quick and a therapist popped up that is 40 euros and does a sliding scale. We have that here where I’m from and I had hoped it was like that where you are. It is worth it even if it’s just 2 or 3 sessions and your parents don’t have to know. It sounds like you are under a lot of pressure and you need to find a way to release. And to just make this about me again, I took online classes while I commuted and finished English finally allowing me to get the degree I never needed. I hope at least one thing I said helps. The rest of it actually was helped me a lot just to say it. I hope no one reaches the center of the tootsie pop and can find a way to heal from childhood or any past trauma. Good luck with school and in your life. Take care.

    **I’m not bothering to proof this, it’s way too long and I’m tired. I’m sure whoever reads it will figure out what I meant if I made a mistake.

13. YES! I feel this too. I can barely maintain eye contact.

14. Hey interesting post here. I have actually experienced something similar. I was doing pretty well with my social life both in friendships and romantically before my degree. But when I started my BA degree in London the academic pressure + the COVID lockdown + feeling being trapped by the system all summed up and I lost my social life. Went through a degree of reclusion until I finished couple months ago the whole thing, and now I am still recovering but certainly better.

    My advice can’t be absolute because I am still recovering but I would say to take your well-being first and truly consider if you have started uni for social pressures or is really something you wanted to do. If it’s the second, then is a matter of learning how to deal with it, perhaps other campus? Another place to live? But if it’s the first, be open to consider alternatives as well.

15. Woah. Exact same here. I do attribute this partially to Covid. I feel like everyone kind of changed in those years of isolation. In my case at least, I also think stress and sleep deprivation (combo of becoming a parent during the pandemic plus other major life events) exacerbated the issue.

    Just know you’re not alone, and I’m glad you wrote this. (I had to delete and re-write a few sentences because I was struggling. See! Not alone.)

16. I think everyone feels like this to some extent, but some people don’t pay attention to it when it happens to them. If you are anything like me, it probably gets worse because you are aware of it and you are probably always trying to catch yourself doing it, which just reassures your fear and you are in a never ending cycle. I also think this does often happen when you get older, sadly. I know its hard and easier said than done, but the more you will talk to people and the less you will think about these interactions and pay attention to how you think other people perceived you, the better it will get. I also see you mentioned a breakup recently? This is usually a vulnerable time because you are probably seeking connections more than you had to before and it’s sort of a new territory, which is also normal. You will adjust, nothing is wrong with you! Your sociall skills will get better, if you socialised normally while growing up, your abilities are normal. Give yourself some time and it will get better!!💞