aftermaths – Page 2 – Real Social Skills

Special interests and friendship

January 14, 2014June 14, 2021 Real Social Skills

A lot of us like things really intensely and want to talk about them all the time.

But not everyone wants to hear everything we know about trains, hats, elephants, Pokemon, or the Dead Sea Scrolls. Constant monologues tend to drive people away.

In childhood, a lot of us are taught that our interests are the problem. We’re taught that we shouldn’t like things as much as we do, that our interest in them is annoying, that no one will ever want to listen, and that we need to talk about normal things. That doesn’t help.

It’s ok to like things. Liking things is *good*. Spending a lot of time thinking about, doing, and talking about things you care about is a good thing, not a bad thing. And it’s possible to do that and still treat other people well.

Part of that involves respecting other people’s boundaries. Most people aren’t interested in the Most Awesome Thing you like, and lecturing them about it when they don’t want to hear it isn’t going to make them *more* interested. When you’re having a conversation with someone, it’s important to identify things you *both* want to talk about. And if there aren’t things you both want to talk about, it’s important to find someone else to talk to rather than trying to push someone into it against their will.

(A caveat: I am talking about peer relationships here. I think that parents and teachers have a significant degree of responsibility to take an interest in things their kids are into. I will probably address that in more detail at some points.)

Some people will have contempt for you for having interests, and for the particular things you care about. Those people are wrong, and interacting with them quickly becomes toxic. People who don’t want you to like things, or who have a problem with the thing you like, aren’t going to suddenly start respecting you. It gets a lot better when you find people who actually like you.

It’s also important to find people who like the thing you like. People who share your interests exist, and you can interact with them on a level that’s not possible with anyone else. Now that we have the internet, it’s much easier than it’s ever been to find people to discuss the things with.

But it’s also possible to be friends with people whose interest in your favorite topics is limited. Some people like people who like things, even when they like different things. Those people can be really great friends.

In conversations with that kind of friend, sometimes they will need to say “ok, new topic?” It’s important to be able to hear that, and to tell the difference between someone saying, “You’re pathetic for caring about that boring thing, stop being so weird”, and someone saying “I am bored with this right now, and would like to talk about something we’re both interested in.”

Given the way most of us are treated from early childhood, it can be very difficult to learn to tell the difference between someone expressing a boundary and someone expressing contempt. It’s important and possible to learn how to do this, though.

It helps to keep in mind that not everyone who would rather not hear about train wheels right now is trying to take things away from you, though. Your friends aren’t going to make a behavior chart and make you earn train things by talking about other topics and keeping silent about the things you care about. (If they do anything remotely like that, they’re not friends and you need to find other friends who actually respect you.)

It also helps to keep in mind that, no matter how polite they are about it, someone who regularly has active contempt for you and your interests is not your friend.

This is hard to navigate. But it’s worth it.

Breakup aftermaths when other things are going on

August 23, 2013June 21, 2021 Real Social Skills

A reader asked:

I’m going through a breakup and am dealing with pretty crippling anxiety and depression despite the fact that my ex and I didn’t end on bad terms. I am a very socially awkward normally and my ADHD sometimes causes me to act impulsively.

I have three questions:

How/when/who is it appropriate for me to discuss my problems with (Like when people ask how I’m doing I normally lie but I think that may not be good for me.)

How long should I wait before spending time with my ex, seeing him is like tearing off a band-aid and

What is a good way for me to cope with my loneliness when my social anxiety prevents me from being able to be around most people?

Realsocialskills answered:

A few thoughts:

First and foremost, there is no one solution to this problem. You’re going to have to slowly find ways of making your life better. You’ll probably feel better if you think of it that way.

I get the sense that you might be thinking of the problem as “How do I get over my ex, stop being so impulsive, not be depressed, not be anxious, and not be so isolated, so that everything will be ok?” That’s a really overwhelming problem, but it’s not actually the problem you have to solve. The problem you have to solve is “What things can I do to start making my life better?”

And there are a lot of things that might be worth trying, and other things worth avoiding. I’ll start with the things I think you should avoid:

Don’t rely on your ex for emotional support:

It’s not good for either of you
Part of what being broken up means is that you need to separate emotionally and regain your own space
Relying on your ex for emotional support makes it damn near impossible to do this
Especially if you don’t have much else in the way of support
It is not your ex’s responsibility to make your life ok post-breakup
It’s probably not a good idea to spend time with your ex until you’re past the point of the breakup feeling like an excruciating loss when you see them

Respect other people’s boundaries:

Someone asking you how you are isn’t necessarily an invitation to share
“How are you” is usually a fairly meaningless socially greeting.
Sometimes people ask because they are concerned and really want to know. These are usually people you are already close to, or people you’re related to.
If you’re not sure whether they really want to know or if it’s just social noise, you can say “It’s kind of hard right now” or something similar, and see if they ask follow up questions
If they ask follow up questions, it’s usually ok to tell them what’s going on
But keep in mind that it’s ok for people to decide they don’t want to be your support system
And it’s important to respect that

Meetup.com

Meetup.com can bee a good way to meet new people in an unthreatening way
It’s easier to talk to new people when you know that you share an interest and are gathering to talk about it or do something
It’s also often ok to go and listen to other people talk
And it’s ok to leave if you need to

Interacting with people on the internet

A lot of people who can’t interact easily in person get a lot of social interactions from Tumblr
This counts as social interaction. Don’t devalue it
It also might help to seek out some other type of forum, like a message board about your interest/fandom/whatever
Email lists can be good too, especially if they’re the kind that don’t have archives that can be googled
Even with people you know, it might be easier to interact on chat or Facebook or some other internet based way

Religion

If you have a faith tradition, it might help you to go to church/temple/synagogue/mosque/place of worship.
If you have a bad experience with the place of worship you grew up with, you might be able to find one that works better for you
Most communities have a number of places of worship. Some of them probably have nice people
Unitarian Universalist churches work for some people who don’t feel comfortable in the organized forms of the religion they grew up with, but don’t want to reject it either
Going to a place of worship can be a way to meet people
It can also be a way to be around people without having to interact too much directly
For some people, being near people without having much conversation can be a way to feel less lonely without anxiety-inducing pressure
There also might be things you can volunteer to help with that aren’t too socially intense
There also might be study groups that work for you, because you can talk about the topic or just listen
Prayer can also help some people. Talking to God can help, even if you can’t talk to people.
Organized religion is not right for everyone, but it can be really good for some people

Reading fiction or watching TV

For some people, stories are a good way to cope with loneliness
Reading or watching stories is sort of like vicarious social interaction
It can also help you to learn a bit more about people and relationships
There’s a reason why lonely isolated kids coping with growing up by reading novels is such a pervasive trope
This isn’t helpful for everyone. Fiction can be really misleading and not everyone can understand it. But for some people, it can be good.

Therapy is helpful for some people

Some people find it helpful to talk to a therapist
Sometimes therapists can help people manage social anxiety and depression better
Or figure out executive functioning strategies
Or learn appropriate boundaries that make friendship easier
Therapy is not a good idea for everyone.
For some people, it isn’t helpful.
For some people, it’s a matter of finding the right therapist
For others, it’s actively anti-helpful and damaging.
For some people, it’s sort of helpful but not worth the costs
Therapy is something that can help some people to get support that helps them to figure out how to improve their life incrementally
Only you know whether therapy is a good idea for you (and it’s ok to decide to stop going to therapy if you decide that would be better)
In any case, therapy isn’t magic and it’s not a cure. There isn’t actually such a thing as “getting help” and that fixing your life. There’s just trying things and seeing what works.

Medication can be helpful for some people

Anxiety, depression, and ADHD are all conditions that some people find easier to manage with medication
For some people, medication is useful in the short term even if it’s not good in the long term
Some people don’t benefit from being on medications regularly, but do benefit from having medication available for occasional use to control anxiety or panic attacks
Medication is not right for everyone.
For some people it doesn’t work
For some people, it works, but has intolerable side effects
For some people, it works, but it takes a lot of experimentation to find the right medications and doses
Only you can decide if medication is right for you
Medication is not a cure or a way to become a different kind of person. It’s a strategy for managing things that works well for some people
If medication doesn’t work for you, that doesn’t imply that you don’t really have depression/ADHD/anxiety.
It also doesn’t imply that your condition is mild
Or that you’re not serious about making your life better
All it means is that medication is not a good strategy for you

Boundaries when anger issues come from being triggered

July 23, 2013June 21, 2021 Real Social Skills

rosewhite6280 said:

Some people with anger problems do so because they themselves are being triggered. Help them deal with their past problem; compassion helps.

That’s good advice in some situations, but I don’t think it’s applicable in the situation they asked about. I think what you’re saying makes a lot of sense in situations in which you’re responsible for another person’s physical and emotional wellbeing. For instance, if you’re raising a kid, or working with a kid who has been through traumatic things, the first thing to keep in mind is that they’re doing things for reasons and that compassion goes a long way.

But you can’t have that relationship with every traumatized person you encounter. It’s not appropriate with a roommate.

And that person was asking specially about what to do about the fact that they are triggered by their roommate’s depression and anger. It was a question about how to make a living situation work, not a question about how to make a support relationship work.

Getting involved enough to help someone deal with their past problem is a completely different kind of relationship than they were asking about. And there’s no indication that either they or their roommate wants that.

And, when you are triggered by someone even at a relatively distant relationship, it’s generally not a good idea to establish an even closer relationship with that person.

Their roommate’s past is not their problem, and helping their roommate get over their past is not their responsibility.

Being triggered by anger and roommates’ emotional states

July 19, 2013June 20, 2021 Real Social Skills

A reader asked:

Hi. I’m triggered by outbursts of anger and by people being majorly depressed around me. My roommate has outbursts of anger and major depression. Help?

My first thought is that you’re probably not compatible roommates. Living with that person probably means you’re inevitably going to get triggered by them a lot, which isn’t good for either of you.

That said, it might depend on how being triggered works for you:

Some people can learn to detect when something is about to become triggering and avert it.
It might be possible for you to do things like figure out which kinds of contact with your roommate are triggering, detect when it’s about to happen, and extract yourself
For instance, if it’s about seeing facial expressions your roommate makes when they’re angry, it might work to leave the room when things are getting too close to the edge
But not everyone’s triggers work this way.
It may not be possible to find ways to avoid being triggered while still living with someone who does a lot of triggering things
If that’s how it is, it’s not a personal failing, it just means you probably can’t safely live together.
Not everyone is compatible, and that’s ok

It also might depend on how often it happens, and what the consequences are:

If it’s infrequent, it might be bearable. Depending on how that is for you personally
It also depends on what kind of trigger it is, and how you feel about it
Like, if it’s the kind of trigger where you have to spend an hour freaking out and convincing yourself that you’re safe, you might decide that that’s bearable
It’s totally ok to decide that being regularly triggered in that way is deal-breaking, though. Either is ok, it’s a matter of what you want
If it’s the kind of trigger where you spend a week fighting suicidal feelings, it’s probably really important to get out of that living situation as soon as possible

Aside from what to do in the roommate situation, some thoughts about being triggered by anger:

Anger is a particularly difficult trigger to deal with
Because anger is an inevitable part of just about every relationship ever
Sometimes people will be justifiably angry at you, and have a legitimate need to express it
And sometimes you have to deal with the thing they’re angry about even though you get triggered by the anger
Even though it’s not your fault, even though you can’t avoid getting triggered
The underlying thing they’re angry about still has to be dealt with
Getting triggered by things people can’t reasonably avoid doing is really awful

Further thoughts about anger:

Having to deal with anger sometimes doesn’t mean that you can’t ever avoid it
Sometimes people have a legitimate need to express anger about something you’ve done, but most ways you’re likely to encounter anger in your day-to-day life aren’t like that
Not all anger has anything to do with you, and when you’re not the person someone is angry at, it’s usually reasonable to avoid engaging with anger
For instance, it’s ok if you don’t want people to vent to you when they’re angry at someone else or angry about politics
And it’s ok to avoid watching angry movies or following angry blogs
Or to block angry bloggers who trigger you, even if they’re good people who you respect
Or to use tumblr savior or xkit to block tags etc that are mostly people being angry
Or to decide not to spend time with people who get angry with you over minor things
Or to decide not to spend time around people who are frequently angry or appear angry much of the time
In particular, you might be better off not sharing living space with someone who gets angry a lot

I’m not sure what else to suggest. Do any of y’all have thoughts?

When you have mixed feelings about an abusive relationship

July 2, 2013June 20, 2021 Real Social Skills

Content warning: this post probably uses language that gets used against abuse victims. I’m trying to avoid that, but I don’t think I’ve entirely succeeded, and some of these words might be triggering. Proceed with caution.

So, here’s the thing.

People are complicated, and relationships are even more complicated. Abuse victims are often pressured to pretend that things are simple. They’re pressured to believe that if there was any positive aspect whatsoever to an abusive relationship, then it wasn’t really as abusive as they think it was.

But it doesn’t work that way. People aren’t averaged. People can do some really good things, and some abusive things. They don’t cancel each other out. They coexist. Whatever else happened, the abuse was real, and you’re right not to tolerate it.

Sometimes… sometimes your abuser is also the person who taught you your favorite recipe.

Or something fundamental about how you understand the world.

Or a major skill you now use professionally.

Or maybe they gave you a lot of valuable criticism that made your art better.

Or maybe they supported you materially when you were in real trouble.

Or any number of other things.

And…

…none of that makes the abuse ok. None of that is mitigating in any way. It doesn’t cancel anything out. Sometimes people talk like the abusive interactions and the good ones get put in a blender or something, and like some sort of theoretical blended average is what really counts. That’s not how it works. It’s the actual interactions that count, not some theoretical average. The abuse is real, and significant, no matter what else happened.

It doesn’t have to be one or the other. If some things about an abusive relationship were positive, it’s ok to acknowledge and value them.

And you can still refuse to ever have anything to do with your abuser ever again. You can still be angry. You can still hate them. You can still decide never to forgive them. You can still warn people against them. None of these things are mutually exclusive.

And, most importantly, valuing some aspects of the relationship or having some positive memories does not in *any way* mean the abuse was your fault.

The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere

June 16, 2013June 21, 2021 Real Social Skills

“I have a good friend in the East, who comes to my shows and says, you sing a lot about the past, you can’t live in the past, you know. I say to him, I can go outside and pick up a rock that’s older than the oldest song you know,
and bring it back in here and drop it on your foot. Now the past didn’t go anywhere, did it? It’s right here, right now.
I always thought that anybody who told me I couldn’t live in the past was trying to get me to forget something that if I remembered it it would get them serious trouble.

Utah Phillips, “The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere”

Just about everyone who has been the victim of abuse, or has lived through something horrible, has been told that they need to stop living in the past. That they need to get over it and move on already, because things are different now.

But the past didn’t go anywhere. It’s still right here, right now. Everything that happened to you, everything they did to you – it all stays happened. And it never stops mattering. Because going through trauma changes things permanently. (and so does every other type of experience, for that matter. But not in the same way).

The past doesn’t have to stop mattering, and you don’t have to pretend that it doesn’t matter anymore. You can build a life, and make good things happen for yourself, even though the past didn’t go anywhere and it never stops mattering.

Even if sometimes you wake up terrified, even if you bear scars, even if you’ve lost a lot of abilities you once treasured, even if you’ve lost your community and everyone you once thought you could count on.

Life is still worth living, and good things are still possible. Even though the past didn’t go anywhere. And acknowledging that the past is still there and that it still matters makes it more possible to rebuild, not less.

Just like you can’t live in a physical abstraction and accepting the reality of your physical body and its limits makes life better, you can’t live in an abstraction of an imaginary theoretical mind that you might have had without the trauma. You have to live as the person you are, and build from there.

And your live is worthwhile, and important, even if some things never heal. The past didn’t go anywhere, but you can keep going.