Does anyone else experience or feel like this?
I realize that I struggle with social and emotional intelligence related things, which gets in the way of my productivity. I feel like I can’t focus on getting things done, because I am constantly stressed and forgetting things as a result. I am genuinely very slow sometimes socially and it bugs me, since I work a retail job and interact with a lot of people. I just usually do not really understand or hear people, and it’s often slightly awkward.
I am good with figuring out other stuff by being book smart, and am skilled enough to do decent art. I am studying communication as a class but it still confuses me, is it this awkward and uncomfortable socially for everyone? How does one go about trying to fix it?
Comments
Could just be stress and exhaustion from depressive illness.
Your social skills might even be better than average. Imagine a person with the flu, who also hasn’t slept last night. They would also be pretty forgetful, not hearing others.
I use my intellectual skills and ability to think analytically to compensate for my difficulties with emotional and social intelligence. People who know me say that I am very emotionally intelligent. What they don’t know is that it’s all a ruse. I just seem like it because I have learned all the patterns analytically in terms of what is the right thing to do and say in various circumstances when it comes to navigating other people and emotions, whether my own or others’. I sometimes describe myself as being like AI software running on human hardware because of this trait. I know what to say and do when it comes to emotions and social norms, but not because I understand what I’m saying or doing- I’ve just learned that these are the specific patterns of what “normal humans” say and do when it comes to emotions and social norms, without actually understanding the meaning of it.
I don’t think it substitutes for actual emotional and social intelligence. I can use all the flowery words I want to describe how I am feeling in a way that sounds not only convincing, but very articulate, to others. However, it doesn’t change the fact that I struggle with alexityhmia- no matter how much flowery language I use, that’s all it is to me- just language. None of it really captures how I feel. This has been an issue with therapy for me at times- I’ve learned that I have to tell therapists about this so that they don’t have the impression that I’m making more progress than I really am, and so that they know that I actually know very little about how emotions work, whether they’re my own or others’ emotions, despite my words making it appear otherwise.
However, I do think it’s better to use my analytical thinking to compensate for my lack of emotional and social intelligence than to not do so. I would struggle a lot more than I currently do if I didn’t attempt to use my intellect and analytical thinking skills to compensate for my disconnect with emotional and social knowledge.
Gotta understand yourself and your life to understand others’. That’s the main thing