It takes hours to get over it and that's exhausting. I am trying for years to find a way out, but it just hasn't internalized yet
- Write things down. Over time you start noticing patterns that help you diagnose and fix the issue. I particularly love the post-mortem when returning from a house party, and how batshit itsane it reads 5 days later. I also have a play-by-play diary of me thinking I was misreading a person's intentions and agonising over every interaction. We've been together for a few years. It's fun to rewind the tape and laugh at your own irrationality.
- Treat your overreaction to social cues as irrational, and deal with it accordingly. Every Spring, my body tells me that grass pollen will kill me (hay fever), but I just ignore that signal as irrational. I now handle my hasty conclusions the same way.
- Indifference is the default. Most people won't be excited about you, but they're a very long way from disliking you. A lack of enthusiasm does not mean anything about you.
- Talk to others about it. When I started talking about my insecurities to close friends, they told me just how wrong I was, with lots of backing evidence. They were genuinely surprised that I thought any of those things. It's a bit like how a friend of mine was super self-conscious about something on his face, and a year in, I had never even noticed it.
This is so smart.
Even broader, take your overreactions to most things as irrational. I am using this recently to rewire myself on all sorts of things and it's quite transformative.
I often mention something without implying blame (or even assuming blame), but it’s still processed that way.
I’m trying to be conscious of this though.
So no real tips, sorry. "we" just have to learn how to live with it ourselves
QFT