Massively overthinking and panicking after talking to people. I hate myself.

Thanks for your reply. That is a good point!

Thanks for you reply. That makes a lot of sense and is a good trick to help rationalise. Thanks I’ll use that in the future!

Thanks for your reply. That is a good point and very true!

Thanks for your reply. I’m sorry you too struggle with this. I hope it went okay seeing your friends. 

Thanks for your reply. Yeah I always end up having half the conversation in my head and only later realising they have no idea what I’m on about and this can be reallt misunderstood as I haven’t actually said out loud everything I “should” have. Glad I’m not the only one!

well done you on your progress! That’s amazing and really reassuring to hear. 

Thanks for your reply. Yeah I always end up having half the conversation in my head and only later realising they have no idea what I’m on about and this can be reallt misunderstood as I haven’t actually said out loud everything I “should” have. Glad I’m not the only one!

well done you on your progress! That’s amazing and really reassuring to hear. 

Thanks for your reply and words of wisdom. I’ll keep these in mind for the future when I’m worrying. It makes sense.

Thanks for your reply. That’s a good point tbf! Thanks I’ll try to use that!

Thank you for your wisdom. 

thank you for your reply. I’m sorry you too have struggled so much with this. Thanks for your advice and tips. I’ll keep that in mind. I’m sorry that you’ve had such experiences - I can definitely relate!! I also get that…I too…if only I knew I was autistic at the time of all these moments! 

Thank you for your reply. Yeah it can be really hard I get you. Thank you, that’s a good idea I will get on that.

Thank you for your reply and words of advice. I’ll keep these in mind for future!

Thank you for your response and wisdom. I will keep these in mind.

Yes, and the only cure is practice without apology:

Keep talking with people, all kinds and don't take anything personally, just have the exchange, note how it went without blame or shame. it's an ephemeral thing. Complements on nails, hair, shoes, shirts are always good openers. Most people love to talk about themselves.

Look for patterns and the variables, like an objective observer. study the phenomenon.

Only one rule - there are no rules. no wrong way, no matter if someone even says it's the wrong way. You have nothing to be ashamed of. 

When you speak and there is silence afterwards, don't hesitate to mention the last thing another person in the group said. then go back to that subject with a question about that subject.. let them take the floor. and all is well.

When they say something obs wrong to prove a personal point just say "as you like" and nod, no need to correct. They wil forget they said it 5 minutes later.

I say 'as you like", and helps me remember everyone has a style and way of being whoever they are at the moment, which often includes divergence from observational truth.

Talking to ND people is another kettle o' fish. No prob there for you I hope.

On replay in your head - remember that the others in the conversation will not remember most of it outside of some small nugget they can use as an anecdote later in yet another conversation - and that they will often change to suit the occasion as well.

In short, in my experience, when many NT persons converse in "small" talk, or even, "serious" subjects, they are scrap-booking.

Yes, I’m with you! I don’t like it happening. But I don’t hate myself for it and neither should you. When I realise I’m doing it, I tell myself (out loud, if I’m alone) to Stop it! or Enough! Then I try to focus on things that will make me calm or things that have made me calm/happy in the past. For me, that’s usually a nature experience. I visualise that and try to get back into the moment and focus on now. If I’m trying to sleep, I focus on my breathing and sometimes use a Sleep meditation app. Awkward moments come back to me that happened years ago as well as last month or yesterday. My tip would be to accept it happens and find ways to refocus. 

This happens to me even when I try to communicate online.

Life on the spectrum can just be pretty unbearable at times.  You should start with being kind to yourself. That's incredible difficult, I know.   Maybe make psychology and self kindness a special interest for a bit and attempt to learn how to do it.  At least in theory if not in praxis.

I feel it. I feel like you described me. Im not sure how it happened that finally overthink less… I remember at some point I got so awfully exhausted of that I was going to puke and I still often feel that way. The thoughts repeat themselves in my head, I still experience that but after repeating myself, as you wrote “nobody gonna remember that” it finally started somehow working. I still feel tortured by dialogues in my head. Possible future conversations, past conversations, how they went, how they could have gone, what I should have said what I said wrong etc. it’s a torture for my brain and doesn’t matter how tired I am, I ask my brain: stop it! But there is an invisible force that forces these thoughts again and again. For days, weeks, sometimes even months. But I often repeat it myself: do t worry, they not gonna remember it, it’s just me who remembers and I know I’m gonna remember it for long time. Maybe even years. My thoughts often also don’t let me sleep. I remember once I said something that could have been taken as racist although I didn’t mean anything like that. I tortured myself for 3 weeks, I couldn’t sleep I was going crazy. I finally approached that woman and started apologizing and over explaining myself that I didn’t mean anything racist. She looked at me with wide eyes she said she has no idea what I’m talking about and advised me to go to a psychologist. It was at work, my previous job. After that situation and apologies I felt even worse like a total idiot, I wished I didn’t do that at all. I felt guilty till the end of my contract and I felt awful whenever I met that woman. Awful and ashamed of myself. If I only knew, at that time, that it’s not my fault. That I’m autistic…

NO mask required to feel secure in yourself. Others are as different from you as you are from them.

Being stuck in past actions does not help us to move on to better feeling ones.

There is no better or worse, proper or divergent. We simply "be" - in every tick of the clock.

You really can let this go. Forgive yourself any breaches of your own rules, or the rules you think are in play.

Let your future actions help you practice, to find a way forward to outrageously joyous self-worth and feelings of self-determination.

We practice all our lives and grow and evolve.

Yeah, all the time. It's exhausting. When I'm overanalyzing conversations, I tell myself - the thoughts will be forgotten by next week - probably replaced by new ones. But it still shows how pointless overthinking is. 

Overthinking is usually what happens when we don't have grounded rules. The brain becomes a spinning beach ball of death, often at capacity. And when a computer does this, it's usually time to update. 

You sound like you could use an 'updating' sort of process. Which, with humans can take some time. 

First on masking. Everyone masks. The "Mask" was invented by Jung to explain a theory on how it's completely Normal to present a false self for the sake of the greater good. Non-Autistics, however, do this intuitively, while a process of repressing childish desires and inappropriate behaviours happens at a sub (merged) level of consciousness. However, they get rewarded for this - affirmed and approved of, as they have already received all the secret codes to understand how to present variations of the self, which afford one privacy at an intimate level. Autistics don't really mask. We just try SUPER hard to fit in with a social collective which we've not been given the rules to play with in. And trying really hard doesn't garner a reward, either. What I've come to accept about "unmasking" is a sort of stop trying to bother fitting in.

But how to engage and make friends? Because we all do need them.

My Rule has been this: learn to integrate your being. This takes time. What do you want? I mean in life? Allow yourself to find a vision for your future self. What kind of person are you? What are your beliefs and doubts? One can tell much about a person by what they spend money on, or invest in. What ethical qualities do you want to have, what is truer than true to you? And how can you begin to align your intention with action with words (vocabulary for us can be the tricky one).

Become grounded in your own being. Know your values. Create appropriate boundaries. Then 'over-thinking' becomes a bit more of being diligent, checking in with my bias, remembering to simply approve of a NT friend and withhold all my alternate possibilities and holes in theories simply because we can afford each other our differences. They more than often put up with my thorough examinations of things or pleasantly say I should write a book or write them down when they've hit a limit.  

It's always good to remember the Public Library is full of individuals who've over and beyond thought a great deal. Sometimes just turning every stone and realising they lived in a time pre-dating possibility, like the Alchemists, like Newton and so on.