Anxiety from self-editing

[Celticgoddess]

What do you do to help curb the anxiety around self-editing? When you're talking (either IRL or online) to someone you like and you find yourself second guessing what you said/did. And then you start wondering if what you're saying/doing is the wrong thing? I hate that feeling. I think I'm improving on it but normally I'm a really self-confident person so when I'm in a situation that I know I'm over analyzing and the self doubt creeps in, it completely throws me for a loop and then I second guess everything when I probably don't even have a reason to. Does any of this make sense? 

[Trigger 11]

I totally understand and can relate to this. I prefer it much better when I used to be able to just about being myself and the people I interacted with knew me, and more impotantly understood me.

This shit I am constantly having issues with at work is more about other people's perceptions than what I am actually saying or doing. Now I am second guess everything, but seem more prone to screw ups. It's frustrating!

I can't understand why other people don't take a step back when they interpret something in a negative way, especially based solely on their own thoughts of right and wrong, appropriate and not so much so.

I know I am better of without second guessing everything, but I am trying to fit into someone else's definition of how to behave.

[Celticgoddess]

Thank goodness someone answered or else then I would have been second guessing making the post to begin with.

trigs - I know what you mean about becoming so paranoid about being misunderstood that you end up more prone to screwing up. Insert vicious cycle here.

Most times i'm quite confident and I don't really care but there are times when I need to care and I try to keep the self doubt down to a realistic level but it can be struggle. It usually happens when I'm with someone with whom I really do care what they think of me and I don't want to screw it up. I find said self doubt tends to pop up when I'm feeling hormonal.

['andersom']

I think I can relate.

Sort of have a delay in most of my responses.

Want to write more, but all I write does not make sense for me now.

(Selfediting in progress  )

[Parts]

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I do it all the time it's very hard to stop not really sure what to say about it though

['andersom']

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I do it all the time it's very hard to stop not really sure what to say about it though

 

Also to get your karma on 1111 

[Christopher McCandless]

Tend to just go for a slightly ambigious style, myself...

[Callaway]

Yes, it makes sense.  I do it too.  I'm not sure how to not do it, though.

[Trigger 11]

Tend to just go for a slightly ambigious style, myself...

That is what I try to do at work, but is not easy as I am a straight-forward, to-the-point kind of person and it can be very hard to generalize and dumb-down stuff for all the idiots!

[Christopher McCandless]

Tend to just go for a slightly ambigious style, myself...

That is what I try to do at work, but is not easy as I am a straight-forward, to-the-point kind of person and it can be very hard to generalize and dumb-down stuff for all the idiots!

I guess I became an expert on mind games a long time a go - hence my general ambiguity.

[SleepyDragon]

Even online, when you can preview what you've written and take out all the adverbs, spelling mistakes and split infinitives, a certain amount of doubt creeps in. Thus all of the "hedging your bets" acronyms like AFAIK, IIRC, YMMV, IMO/IMHO/IMNSHO, and their ilk. At times I feel impatient with this. "Just my opinion" — well, who the hell else's could it be?

Another difficulty is that online, no one can see the expression on your face, and unless half your post is smileys, there's uncertainty about whether the reader will take it as you intended. We word things so that no one could possibly misinterpret, yet even then we doubt. (And even then, people can and do misinterpret.)

One answer, as Hadron says, is deliberate ambiguity, which can be great fun when skillfully executed. Take Calandale for instance, he excels at ambiguity. "No one deserves me." That's delicious! So many different ways of taking that! It's a game to toss out something murky and see which way people jump.

[Celticgoddess]

Take Calandale for instance, he excels at ambiguity. "No one deserves me." That's delicious! So many different ways of taking that! It's a game to toss out something murky and see which way people jump.

That is a very good point! Cal used to crack me up when he threw out lines like that.

[Icequeen]

Probably why I don't post more, I spend too much of my time deleting and re-writing everything now.

IRL I basically avoid people, never sure what I'm going to say anymore some days. 

[Parts]

Probably why I don't post more, I spend too much of my time deleting and re-writing everything now.

IRL I basically avoid people, never sure what I'm going to say anymore some days. 

I'm the same way IRL I have a few stock phases but unless they want to talk about what I want it's all Bah Bah Bah

[Natalia Evans]

What do you do to help curb the anxiety around self-editing? When you're talking (either IRL or online) to someone you like and you find yourself second guessing what you said/did. And then you start wondering if what you're saying/doing is the wrong thing? I hate that feeling. I think I'm improving on it but normally I'm a really self-confident person so when I'm in a situation that I know I'm over analyzing and the self doubt creeps in, it completely throws me for a loop and then I second guess everything when I probably don't even have a reason to. Does any of this make sense? 

I constantly have this a lot. I am talking to people and then all of a sudden they stop speaking to me. They don't reply back. I try to not be shy and when I try and get over it, I am not appreciated so I go back to being shy again thinking why bother, people won't respond to me. But when I have conflicts with people, sometimes it's not even me, it's them but I don't know it. That's why I ask sometimes.

I am good at having my comments thumbed down at youtube and on yahoo answers. But lot of people get thumbs down at YA so I don't worry about getting them because it might have nothing to do with me and it's them. Maybe someone didn't agree what I said or like my opinion, not that I said soemthing wrong or inappropriate or come off as rude or anything. Or it could have been trolls doing it and some people like to hit buttons.


In fact I called my WP friend up on the phone to ask him if he is mad at me and he said he wasn't and I told him he hadn't responded to my last two PMs so I thought I maybe did something wrong when we last hung out. Could It have been me talking to his girlfriend that did it or me playing my Nintendo DS and he said "no" and said he isn't in my area anymore is why and I told him "why didn't you say so? You left me worrying I might have done something wrong."