Published on 12, July, 2020
Mine was when I started school. I remember sitting on a table with other children. I felt happy enough but then they all started what felt like a word dance that I didn't know the steps to and couldn't join in with. I remember feeling very alone and confused and panicky.. I mayve had my first shut down. Felt like i was in a washing machine and sound became a background thing. Suddenly couldn't understand them. That feeling still comes in a group of people.
What was your experience?
When I was a child I was around a group of people. When someone in the group said something funny and everyone laughed, I laughed "on the inside", but my face remained neutral. Then they questioned me if I found it funny, and I said "yes" then they angrily wondered why I didn't just laugh then. Then they all eyeballed me intensely with rage, as if I did something wrong to spite them.
There were many instances at school where I'd fail social interactions like that, either by wrong facial expressions, or not being quick witted enough to think of a response in time and having an "awkward silence," and other people would react strongly or negatively towards me, they'd assume and interject what "terrible things they think I meant through my facial expressions or my awkward silence.
I'd then replay negative social interactions over and over in my head for hours and hours, days and days, months and months, thinking about what went wrong and what I could have done differently. Luckily I've learned not to do that, because that's maddening, but I did that for most of my childhood. Now I just say what I think, and avoid letting other people assume what I'm thinking, because they go to worse case scenarios, project those bad things on me, and then treat me badly based on that. So I avoid the conversation tumbling to that whenever possible.