[Secretum]

Does anyone else have this issue? It started when I first began to have symptoms, at 12. I withdrew from everyone, because I thought that everyone was judging me and didn't like me. I isolated myself from even my own family because I thought that they were judging me. It took me years to get to the level of social adeptness that I have now, and I'm still far from where I was before I got sick.

I also tend to think that people are romantically interested when they are not. There is this guy who goes to my church. Every time we talk, he seems nervous but happy. He steals glances at me from across the room when we're involved in separate conversations. Today I asked someone who knows him better if he was single, and she said he was in a relationship. It is spooky to know that I had misread his behavior so grossly.

Then, I complimented him before I left church today (he had played some songs he wrote during the service). He was very short with me, like he was annoyed with me. It's as if he had somehow heard me asking whether he was single, and was disgusted by the idea that I would like him. But he couldn't have heard us talking, because he was on the other side of the room. And the person I told wasn't likely to have told him that I asked her if he was single. So I know that I imagined his coldness towards me, just as I imagined his flirtatiousness.

It just seems so real!

Ugh.

[Rand.]

I don't know if what I experience is coming from the same reason but I do get something like that sometimes. A recent example, my mom said that I could do whatever I wanted in regards to supper and I thought she was really upset with me only to find out later she wasn't. One of the worse cases was a little while ago. I would tease my brother in law and thought he was being playful back but really he was giving off all sorts of cues that it was really ticking him off. It took a long conversation with my sister to tell me that this wasn't the case. It sure can be frustrating.

[faerie_moon_x]

I always have the tendancy to think people are angry at me or rude to me. I have to think and re-think things. I see coldness when there isn't any. I have to talk to people multiple times before I trust my judgement on them of being friendly vs. unfriendly, because I tend to think everyone is unfriendly at first.

There has been study done on people with bipolar teens that they judge neutral expressions as hostile. I know I do this (even though I'm not a teen any more, they just studied it on teens, I think.)

[CastlesInTheAir]

I think a lot of people misread facial expressions and body language in general. I'll often feel neutral or be day dreaming and be asked what's wrong. And my nervousness is often viewed as attitude or "ditzy".

Since I've been treated like crap in the past, I view almost every interaction as someone's attempt to be mean or scheming. Because of that I can come off as being standoffish or even confusing to a person because I would love to be thier friend or get to know them but I don't trust thier intent.

[DirtyDog04]

Yea, I don't get it either. I can be talking and laughing with a person, and still believe that they think I'm the biggest scumbag on earth, or a '*****', or an idiot, or all of the above. But maybe they really have the same fears and are just better at covering it up. At least that's what I tell myself. He also might just like the way you look and not really want to get involved.

If you want to go deeper, as I tend to do, I think he see's himself as the alpha, and maybe his friend is even lying to you about him being in a relationship. If any of that is the case, I say screw him for lack of a better term. I'm beginning to question what I meant by that. I fear that I think like a girl- separate issue. Find someone with more compassion, we are more than just bags of flesh.

I've read about this phenomenon and it seems to be a pet love of psychologists when describing how people with sz can be less schiz. I believe it is unhelpful to quantify how well you are doing by measuring yourself on how you can read social cues. It reminds me of that other stick that is used to beat vulnerable people with. Being 'Judgemental' and 'not judging'. the fact of the matter is people make 'judgements' all of the time through out a normal expressive conversation. There is something cancer patients talk of its called 'the tyranny of possitive thinking'. I think we are social animals , and we need to express ourselves.

[emeraldstars]

For me, the social clues are the hardest thing to get. I often don't see when someone is interested in me when they are and have lost friends because I misinterrupted something. I hate it. I feel the social outcast as me so I pretend I am someone else that is socialable.