Being Socially Awkward is a Trauma Symptom

secretly I'm socially awkward I have ways of acting normal and smooth but the lack of structure and role modeling that defined my childhood I had to teach myself how to connect with people and things didn't really snap together until I learned how to heal my childhood PTSD symptoms when I was learning about cptsd nobody talked about social awkwardness but it's totally a trauma thing and I learned that when I put out my four-part series on isolation and loneliness a few years ago and I was watching these videos again the other day and I was thinking I have got to bring these back they are just as relevant today as they were back when I made them and especially today I want to share with you this video I made on complex PTSD and social awkwardness have you ever been to a hotel where there's a person who's there to carry your bags for you and even though you didn't ask they carry your bags to the room and it's totally awkward and you think I'm supposed to give them a tip right I've seen this on TV but you don't have cash and they're just standing there and you think what do I do what do I say and instead of saying anything you just say Okay bye and then you shut the door and then you feel like a real a-hole or maybe you're the person who carried the bags and you're not really supposed to ask for the tip and there's some right amount of time to just stand there waiting for it but if you have childhood PTSD and You're vulnerable to feeling shame and you're getting all this regulated over this just like the person who's supposed to give you the tip and then you get the door shut in your face well now we've got two people on either side of the door just flooding with shame and they're not able to say a word and this kind of awkwardness happens all the time for those of us who experience trauma and childhood the shame we feel in awkward social situations makes us collapse inside and we want to flee the interaction and isolate this is my third video in the isolation series and it's all about social awkwardness and how to navigate it so we can more gracefully handle awkward situations and avoid the need to isolate now social awkwardness doesn't always go hand in hand with childhood PTSD and complex PTSD but early trauma put such a huge dent in our confidence and family homes where there was abuse or neglect or drugs or grinding poverty are not usually the greatest places to learn how to handle yourself with other people so a lot of us end up having no idea how to act in challenging situations things like when you're in a formal environment or you've been accused of something you didn't do or you happen to be in a room with someone famous or you win a prize or you lose a prize and you're expected to congratulate the winner or when a family member says something really offensive this stuff can be so fraught for us with childhood bdsd and so many of us never get taught how you do this how do you deal with awkward situations gracefully without shutting down or making a scene and so this is one more reason why people with early trauma have such a tendency to isolate to withdraw from connection and relationships with people even though they long for those things it's one of the worst consequences of childhood PTSD and if you don't turn it around you could end up going deeper into isolation and whatever dodgy personality traits you may already have we all have some right isolation is only going to make them worse now remember isolation is not the same as periods of constructive Solitude Solitude can be calming but ongoing isolation makes us deteriorate we get weird it's really important to break this cycle and learn again how to reconnect now personally I grew up with educated parents who themselves had been raised by polite and conscientious parents and I learned to say please and thank you and all that but because there was alcoholism there was not a lot of attention or supervision given to us kids and we were inconsistently disciplined and we were rarely called out for rude and selfish behavior I also was missing a lot of the just basic skills of social behavior I was 12 years old when I taught myself to use a knife and a fork together until that time I had a more intuitive way of eating if you could call it that that usually involved scooping up food with a spoon or a fork in my hand and then tipping my head back while I chewed it so it didn't fall out while I chewed with my mouth open and all the siblings did it and it was all we knew no one minded and it was only when I started to feel shame about my manners when I was at other people's homes that I tried to figure out how you're supposed to do this being neglected can bring out some ugly traits the seriousness of drug and alcohol alcohol problems in the family kept us all tangled up in chaos and in that situation a kid kind of has to be selfish to get by if you're not getting attention and praise sometimes you might start to show off to other people I know I did if you don't get treated fairly you might be kind of kind of pushy to get what you want or arrogant or sharp tongued or dismissive of others and if you're not cared for when you're sick or your feelings are hurt you might start talking about these hardships to anyone who will listen like too much so how can we teach ourselves to be more socially graceful I used to read etiquette books but if they're written by people from normal families they kind of skip over that very Elementary part that I actually need to I'm just like how do you even begin my parents were pretty decent people then despite the chaos but I got very little guidance on how to be and so starting in my teens I sought out and connected with socially graceful people and I wasn't usually courageous enough to ask for help but I watched them I listen to what to say when is it appropriate to speak up when should I pull back and what I've learned has helped me to be less isolated and help me not be limited to the company of only other screwed up people and more flexible to hang out with just about any kind of person and that's what social Grace is it's having the choice to connect with a wide variety of people wherever you care to be and remember social Grace doesn't mean you tolerate abuse and that you stand there are just like helplessly when you're in danger these guiding principles will help you to create a feeling of ease and welcome with people around you when you want that with them and that will allow your connection to Blossom I'm going to give you some guiding principles that will help you create a feeling of ease and welcome with the people around you and to create the opportunity for more connection to Blossom and here they are first be gentle with other people remember that they may be as sensitive As You Are second be trustworthy people need to feel safe to grow closer to you or anyone and third be humble help others feel your respect for them by keeping at least half the focus on what they're saying and how they're feeling really paying attention to others not only makes them feel heard but it will help you learn to genuinely appreciate who they are when you're in a social situation even as the many colors of your personality start to shine much brighter the art of being gentle trustworthy and humble will create a positive environment for connection to grow you will find doors opening for you socially all around you and into your life will come other socially graceful people whose company will feel so much Kinder and easier and more supportive than anything you ever had now if you'd like to learn more about healing your urge to isolate you'll find links to my courses and some free resources in the links below and next week I'll have one more video about isolation that one is about boundaries so I'll see you there foreign [Music]

Channel: Crappy Childhood Fairy

Views: 98,107

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Id: dSTIi9i9d6Q

Length: 8min 5sec (485 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 17 2022