Ruminating over possible conversations and dissociate.

You describe the "choke" very well. I'm very much of the mindset now of "that's happened and its absolutely fine".

Theres two strands to this. Any waking moment I am not engaged in anything else, my head is a conversation with another person. I think some of it stems from needing to file things in my head / manage unresolve.  The other is probably going over all the different eventualities of past or future conversation / replaying a specific future or past conversation on a loop. I can get lost in this in my head. Regarding past interactions, if I've had clear feedback from the other person it doesn't tend to happen. If I've been with unfamiliar people it happens more and there's an element of needing to "come down" from the momentum afterwards. It happens less these days now though.

EuanF said:

Sometimes when my mind wanders it starts to daydream/ruminate on possible conversations I can have with people, particularly those close in my life.

I used to do this a lot - especially as I would often "choke" during the actual conversations and would try to think what I should have said or would say next time for a better result - full blown attempts at scripting basically.

When I realised how much energy I was wasting on this (I would just choke again at the next conversation so why even bother trying to script a reply and recall it) I made a concious decision to shut this down and refocus on something productive.

I used mindfulness to be able to do this, but from what I hear from others on this site they are not all able to master this. It does take discipine and the need to have something else to be able to refocus on.

Yeah 

I am quite mindful about how dark my conversations can become and limit that. I do rely on people setting their own boundaries though as I can’t really gauge things. 

I have definitely pushed people away through spending more time worrying about them deciding to end the friendship or people I'm not even that close with, instead of just appreciating them and their support & friendship.

I regret not being more open with them about that. I'm glad you have that.

The problem is I'd be constantly worried that I'm heaping too much on them as my friends aren't my therapists and I would never want them to be.

I do the same thing and it tends to lead to me pushing people away as the conversations in my head always turn out negative. 

I have one close friend who I have explained this to and they asked me to discuss it with them openly. She is really supportive and helps me to understand my thought process. Doing this with her has helped me realise that I have no control over situations or other people’s thoughts and feelings and i am upfront in my need for transparency to assist this. I only have control over my responses to other peoples thought and feelings. 

I find that 99% of the time the thing I fear isn't as bad as I think it'll be. On the 1% of occasions it is, it really throws me.

Yeah I do that constantly. I think I subconsciously run scenarios and possible conversations . Sometimes I can get almost deja vu where a scenario and reality collide. What really upsets me is when something totally out of the blue happens and it throws me.

I think it's all part of masking, I don't like to stand out and make mistakes so I check and double check and have an answer for most things.

It can be frustrating and tiring.

Take care 

Oh I do this all the time. 90% of my thoughts are basically this.

I haven't found a way to deal with it unfortunately.