Do you take things personally ?

I have a big problem where I take every little thing personally. The tone of someone's voice for example may sound a little irritated or might make me think they're mad at me even if it's all in my head, a distant look makes me feel like I'm boring someone. Just some examples. I always assume people are annoyed by me, mad at me, judging me, or secretly laughing at me behind my back

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I have a hard time with this as well. If someone is in a bad mood or is a jerk to me, then I feel like it's my fault and I take offense. Not only that...I may also get in a foul mindset because I'm bothered and feel helpless. I hate when people are mad at me, but really it's not my problem. People are entitled to be in "not so happy" mood and I need to learn to not allow it to affect me so much and not shut down or lash out with intense emotions.

My SO is passive aggressive, so he uses the "silent treatment" to "punish" me so to speak for doing things that he does not approve of. Over the years...I've learned to find other interests to do until he snaps out of it, which he always does. I am not one for conflict and he can't fight with someone who is not engaging and feeding to that behavior.

Blue...you're not alone.

I take things incredibly personally. I'm constantly scanning people to gauge their feelings as though I can read their thoughts, which I can't so it drives me up the wall at times. It's exhausting. The strange thing is, if something is wrong with someone I can often intuitively tell through their body language and stuff. Hang in there blue bird, it's sometimes a curse to be highly sensitive, but can also be a gift. As for feeling as though people are laughing at you, I can relate, very tiring. I just ask myself "is it a fact they're laughing at you?" If the answer is no, I choose to let it go

Hello Blue_Bird: This is part of the reason the Skeezyks is solitary.

I guess one way I deal with this is that I realized people are usually much more interested in themselves than me - so I am not likely the cause of whatever is going on for them. Not that it's nice to be on the receiving end of unpleasant behaviour, I just don't have to feel responsible for it. It's their choice to act that way.

oh yes, I can relate. I will ruminate on it too.

i like this old quote: "it's none of my business what YOU think of ME. my only concern is what I think of YOU."

i used to be like that, looking through peoples eyes and body language to read them. i grew out of it as i realized it was their problem not mine. i was usually right in the end, i just think i am more intuitive than more people.

In one of the groups in my day treatment program today this was brought up by the therapist coincidentally so we talked about ways to overcome it.

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I grew up with a mother who took everything personally. I knew that what I said or did wasn't personal so I learned through that not to take things personally myself (besides I didn't want to be anything like my mother)

could you imagine if both of us took everything each other said personally.......the family dynamics (being an only child) were bad enough as they were.

Absolutely one hundred percent.

I think it's self-esteem. I wanted to have a "self-esteem problems" forum, but I guess we really don't matter enough...

Yeah. Irony, I guess.

i try not too, but i end up doing it anyway

their have been times where people have said beforehand, "don't take this personally" because they know i'm like that

What about the Steps to Better Self Esteem subforum, would that work?

I take things way too personally. I think for me it has something to do with social anxiety. I don't look at people (a person could sit next to me for an hour and I wouldn't know how they look like), but I also don't like people to look at me. I'm especially irritated when ordering something, while some people are looking at me. I would be already insecure about speaking another language, and now people are looking at me .... I translate that immediately as judging me.

Back when I cared, my first long-term girlfriend yelled at me when I asked "Are you mad at me?" for maybe the 10th time in a 3 hour period. I don't think that everyone is annoyed by me or mad at me – only the women that I loved.

We were sitting in her kitchen, with her mom, when I asked it so Susan exploded and left the room. Jackie, her mom, asked me if I had done anything that I was feeling guilty about. I hadn't and told her so. That may have been the first time that I heard the term 'self-esteem' used. I loved that woman dearly. She kinda/sorta told me that when she heard me ask the question, that I sounded as if I had kissed another girl and was trying to find out if Susan had discovered my treacherous behavior. Then she got into the self-esteem stuff (this was before we'd even used the word "love" directed towards one another) and I said something like "I think that I like her more than she likes me." Hilarity ensued. Susan thought that I was trying to 'break up' with her when I kept on and on with the 'are you mad at me' questions.

So these days (45 years later; I'm nothing if not a quick learner) I've come to realize that I'm probably all of those things to someone or a group of someone's, but it's unlikely that everyone that I allow on board my train is annoyed with me, displeased with me, laughing at me, etc.

Not caring, naturally, is much similar when the only person that you really hang out with is yourself. If I felt that someone were laughing at me now? I'd probably think of some colorful pejorative retorts that I would never use, try to see that I do look pretty funny without even the thighs of Sgt. Dan, and wonder if I was feeling guilty, paranoid or low, low self esteem. As with almost anything of late, I'll ask myself the ultimate question – does it matter? — and, while awaiting the flight of monkeys out of my rear (which signifies a "yes, it matters") I could search the Internet for other guys named "Eliphelet" and, if nothing happened within 20 minutes, decide that as I wasn't given the usual "sign," I was just being paranoid again about something that didn't matter.

Now your parents may not be (or have been) Biblical Hebrew Scholars so you may not share my middle name and/or you may have different signs that are very strong indicators of "meh; I guess so." In my case, I usually don't feel too grand about myself to begin with and I am more apt to think that (or am paranoid with the fear that) those who I love, or loved, the dearest are the very ones who might be/might have been talking about me, plotting against me, etc., than any strangers that I might pass by.

And then I lost my legs.

When I used to make trips to a mall, to the theatre, etc., I always assumed that people were talking about me and thought that one reason why groups of women fled was because I sat at just the right height that my face was/is exactly breast/chest high. And then there are the gentleman who feel as if they must open even automatic doors for me. The absolute most hilarious, though, is the mom who, after her child has stopped and pointed and yelled, "Mommy, Mommy, that man ain't got no LEGS!!!" feels as if she must apologize for her child's behavior when it would be less embarrassing for the three of us if she would just grab the kid and scurry away.

I cared just as much then as I do now. Not a bit. Now I just assume that an odd glance is going to be directed toward me personally. Think Big Foot at the food court. Someone's going to take a look. At him. Personally.

Sometimes I think that I'll find some cast-off prosthetic legs and wear them when I roll along in my chair. A whole body in a wheelchair doesn't seem as if it would be as grotesque as a torso alone.

But then I think, "meh," performed with the slightest shoulder shrug, and get on with feeling miserable. And that can be emotionally draining.

Yes, and it is something I'm working on constantly. I have managed to get better with it to some degree, but there's still a part of me that takes things personally when I really shouldn't and get mad/depressed over something someone said or how they said it. It's something I think I'll have to fight against for the foreseeable future. Maybe one day I'll get the best of it, or at least have the tendency under wraps enough that it doesn't cause me problems.

I do. It comes from constant reinforcement from my mother that I was at fault for everything - and that I was cause for her humiliation that I wasn't perfect.

I don't take things personally.

oh very much so. I am constantly observing people: things they say, tone of voice, and body language. I'm convinced their subtle behaviour will reveal a distaste for me. Thus, I tend to read into things that perhaps aren't there or weren't intended as such. Thus, even when something probably had no ill intent I hold it in contempt - and at the same level of those things that have been obvious slights against me. I hold it against the person(s) and can never again be in their presense positively.

Not usually. Sometimes I get frustrated by what people say, but that's about it.

That's one of the signs my paranoia is acting up

Knowing the difference between OUR stuff and THEIR stuff is the key. If it isn't about YOU, then you can ignore it.