The behaviour post mortem

Started by Writingthepain, June 23, 2019, 02:45:37 AM

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Writingthepain

A tradition in my family is that after any kind of socialising with outsiders my behaviour will be picked over and analysed and over analysed all the way home. I'll be criticized for everything and end up feeling like I behaved appallingly.
Even though outsiders seem to enjoy my company and conversation far more than my npd moms. But she will argue her case so well that I'll end p feeling like I just want to hide my bad behaviour away at home and never leave the house again.
Some of her frequent criticism is that: I've interrupted her constant monologues (and rescued the poor bored victim), I've told them something that mom had decided was a secret  (she has bizzare ideas of random things she wants to keep secrecy e.g.. she's booked onto a fun art course but that's got to be kept secret from everyone). Or I teased someone which she interprets as being nasty.
This destroys my confidence and spoils any contact with outsiders since I'm always on the watch for what I'll have got wrong next.

all4peace

Writingthepain, this sounds really obnoxious. I can't remember, are you still living with this parent/family? Do you have a way of not traveling to and from events with this parent? It's harmful to live with constant criticism. I'm thankful you can see that others enjoy your company, but hope you have a way to set clear boundaries about this kind of behavior from your family.

Dinah-sore

Oh my goodness, my heart breaks for you. I must admit that I have been through all of this too. On the way home I will be the butt of many jokes, most of them about how something I said or did was so ridiculous or stupid, and how people must think I am an idiot.

It was so bad growing up, that now I do it to myself. Every time I leave a social gathering, I feel beyond depressed and I over analyze every joke or statement and think how horrible everyone must think I am, how I am stupid or idiotic, or "ungodly." It still kills me. It happened to me recently.

And now I am sensing that I am getting nervous when I am in the groups. I never felt that before, just depression afterwards. But now, if I walk into a room and a bunch of people are happy to see me and come over to greet me, I start to feel really nervous that I am going to do something wrong, or say something wrong, or they all hate me (while they are smiling at me and hugging me and super happy to see me).

I don't think I am PD because of this, just that this was my programming growing up. I need to work on self-esteem, and do some work on this because I am also really desperate for friends right now, and I being scared of having friends is not working for me! LOLOL. 

Please know that you are not alone. Please continue to fight these assertions from your family. Don't believe what they say about you. PD people think that everyone is just like them. So if they are mean, and think the worst of people--then they believe that other people are mean and think the worst of YOU!!!! But other people are NOT like your PD family. Most people are really normal. <3 And all4peace is right, it might be better if you can remove yourself from criticism as much as possible, because over time it will totally mess you up.
"I had to accept the fact that, look, this is who I am. I have to be who I am, and all of us have a right to be who we are. And whenever we submit our will, because our will is a gift, our will is given to us, whenever we submit our will to someone else's opinion a part of us dies." --Lauryn Hill