Hi Stranger,

It is good that you are writing out the way you feel challenged. It takes courage to do that even when it comes to an anonymous site.

It does sound like you are struggling with some social anxiety and what that challenge means is "fear of socializing with others". There are all kinds of reasons people stress when it comes to interacting with others. And while a lot of people do interact, not everyone does it well. And because not everyone does it well, a lot of people struggle. In fact, this site is literally FULL of all kinds of situations people are struggling that pretty much narrows down to their exposure to parents/siblings/piers that were "poor" communicators. Early exposure to individuals who are terrible at communicating, can lead to how a person can struggle, and develop some kind of mental illness or phobia when it comes to interacting with others. So, what can develop in a lot of people is a degree of "shame". This is what you are saying in your title, "Hate Myself".

If one really spends time "observing" human beings, there are a lot of ways human beings communicate with each other that can vary in degrees where they are trying to hide their "fear and shame". Sometimes one can see their area of struggle, often that is expressed in their master of language. I was reminded of that yesterday when I was once again helping my husband "spell" words. I was teaching him how to create an email and send because believe it or not he only knew how to respond to emails, not create one of his own. Then he asked how to spell the word "really", and I went over to him to show him how to use spell check. The word he spelled out was "realy" and when I showed him how to click on the red to see another way of spelling, what came up was rely, relay and not "really". So, I had to once again spell it out for him. My husband cannot figure out how to spell words phonetically, his brain simply cannot do that because he has dyslexia. My husband has communication challenges and can get frustrated, and I have to admit there are lots of times he frustrates me. My husband also has ADHD so his ability to be patient suffers.

Because my husband struggles with learning disabilities, he does have "shame" issues. He can be impatient, he can talk over me, talk down to me and I have to say it has not been easy. There are all kinds of things about my husband that have been difficult and challenging to me. Because of his ADHD, and probably his dyslexia, his attention span when it comes to sitting and communicating with him doesn't last as long as I need it to last. So, I tend to have to "repeat" a lot.

Because my husband struggled with language and did not learn as well as others because of that challenge, he developed "shame" issues. So, my husband does have some of the symptoms described in narcissism. Yet, he is not at the level on the spectrum of NPD. My husband tends to exaggerate a lot and at times can be grandiose. He developed these habits in an effort to cover up or make up for the "shame" he felt because he did not "learn" as well as other students/piers. He is not easy to work with and sometimes even interact with in that one thing I had learned is if I think one way, he typically thinks the opposite way. YET, he is not "stupid" and if I was stuck out in the wild for some reason and had to survive, he would be able to step up and do a lot of things that would be needed to survive.

I have a daughter who has dyslexia too. I had to learn all about this challenge so I could be there for her as she was trying to learn. It was not easy when it came to how cruel her piers could be to her because she "learned differently". I am lucky that there were people that noticed this challenge and decided to study it and find out what is different and how to "help" these individuals learn and achieve in spite of struggling. Unfortunately, a lot of these individuals end up going down the wrong road in life, a lot of these people are in jail, and what is sad about that is that these individuals tend to actually be "gifted" and have the capacity to achieve and contribute significantly to society.

I am sharing this with you so that you can begin to see how humanity can create "social anxiety" issues out of "ignorance". The ignorance is the expectation to base value on language skills and how interactions can become toxic simply because of how quickly people make judgments and interact in ways that create "shame" issues. In that a lot of people struggle when it comes to "human interaction". You are really not alone in having some fears and inadequacies. The proof of that is all over this site. When you come and post and interact on this site, you are in a large group of people from all over that are sharing their genuine challenges and insecurities and frustrations that are not all that different from your own challenges of inadequacies.

When you talk about how well educated you are in that you qualify to work on a higher level, but that one of the things that is holding you back from working on that level is your social skills, you are not as alone as you think. Truth is, it's not easy to be involved with other human beings without facing "social challenges". The first step when it comes to stepping away from "self hate" is to recognize how very much you are not alone when it comes to finding a way to "engage". A lot of human beings find ways to keep them to task when it comes to communicating a message, they write speeches and now use teleprompters and some people if they are on a high level will insist on having the questions they will be asked in an interview in advance. There are individuals who have jobs in the "communications" area where they are the spokes person for someone important, or for a company or product. Ironically, that has been practiced all throughout human history. Even in a prison there are individuals who become the communicators of groups.

One thing to keep in mind is that people do like to talk about themselves. People respond well when someone "listens" and has a way of talking to them that "includes" them. I had to teach my daughter how to do this in high school. She had a boy that she liked and he would call her on the phone and one day she came to me and said, "Mom, I don't know what to do because this boy doesn't talk". So, I told her that because she knows that about him she will have to make up a list of questions to ask him. I taught her how to not only initiate the conversation, but to keep it going. Well, this one boy NEVER forgot that about her, she was the one person he "could" talk to and he NEVER forgets her birthday and he is always the first one to call her too. Often he will call her just after midnight so he can be the first one to wish her happy birthday. You know why? Because she was the first one to teach "him" how to have a conversation all those years ago. In fact, this guy would marry her if she encourage that. The other thing about her learning how to create a conversation was that she never forgot how she needed to do that with this one boy. And that was the beginning of her learning curve when it came to developing "her" social skills. And because of that she works in a position where she practices that same kind of interaction and she does really well. Social skills is "learned and practiced", it's a skill that has to be developed. YET, the "skill" includes learning how to interact on different levels where others may struggle and figuring out how to keep the conversation going in spite of.