Hello.

I feel a genuinely terrifying level of self doubt, confusion and indecision around almost any multi-step verbal instructions at work - to the point that I instantly forget what I've been asked for and feel hypertense and shitty for hours afterwards until I calmed myself down.

Background: -Brother suicide at 21 (few years older than me)

  • Father died of cancer when I was 26 (and was insanely aggressive with me and my brother - unquestionably helped push my brother to suicide)
  • Mother was a genuine danger. The worst sort of self-absolving, self obsessed wolf in sheeps clothing judas.

Basically my home life growing up was chaos. Literally no room for healthy social learning. Just a bunch of warped maniacs demanding bizarre and abnormal interaction with me constantly.

Was a very natural communicator as a kid and always very popular but feel that shit wore me down. Was also moved up by 2 years at a young age but had to be moved back down and did the same year twice due to a new school's rules. Somehow grades eventually tailed off -- at some point I stopped being able to learn because of the incredibly intense fear of getting things or steps wrong when I tried to answer questions. Also started feeling intense feelings of paranoia around age of 10 like everyone was looking at me and judging me harshly all the time.

Basically, currently the issue actually feels like a sickness or a mental health issue due to the incredible intensity of the dread at being exposed as an idiot or being hated, ridiculed or shouted at for making mistakes -- either socially or in work. Was a common theme for me as a child.

Seems like the last hurdle for me really - so anyone with ideas around either learning not to give a fuck or beating self-defeating dread to instead say what you think, even when youre not sure if youre right or you might frustrate another person --- or to learn to work around that dread so I can just be relentless and balanced without procrastinating on decisions on projects involving other people

TLDR - Basically, anything involving other people that requires remembering a multi step process or contacting more other people, I freeze and feel like I will die of shame.

Also I dont feel comfortable speaking my mind or making mistakes at all.

This is one of those puke things.