It’s so surreal to me that other people actually have had positive social experiences that motivated them to continue to seek out and maintain social connections. Or maybe they just felt the drive to anyway regardless of social outcomes. Humans, man.

I give up very easily on social environments because I do not know how to navigate conflict and people give me really offended looks whenever I can’t relate to whatever they’re talking about, especially when it comes to “universal” experiences I haven’t gone through.

And some people would say to go out and start gaining experience, but without a social support system to fall back on there’s no foundation for building emotional resilience when things inevitably go bad, as life is wont to go.

Man. What am I even supposed to do with that? Whatever label you put on my problems I feel incredibly fragile (not volatile) sometimes and it is so frustrating not being a “better” person at my age. There’s just way too much energy required to “fix” whatever this is.

The thought distortion, memory problems and emotional flashbacks are by far the worst aspects of it all. I can’t trust my own brain and having been subjected to gaslighting in the past it’s an awful kind of self-torture to not know which perceptions I can trust.

/End thread.