Ever feel completely misunderstood?

[Quietguy11]

My perceptions of the world are shades in between black and white. Sometimes everything seems fine, and colorful, other times it seems like everything is going backwards. I bounce back and forth between these two perceiving realities. Tonight was one of those not so great nights. I was more annoyed with myself than with anyone else, but the way my friends were just having such a great night, being so care-free in so many ways, made me envious to a certain degree. I felt, why the hell can't I be more normal, and happy? Why do I have to be so miserable all the time? My dad often says that it's all choices we make, but that gets a little bit hard to accept because if it was simply choices we made wouldn't we choose by definition the things that benefit us and make us more happy, instead of living in constant social calamity. I think that choices have something to do with it, but not as an overall factor. I think that bad things happen that are beyond choice and control. Things that we have to learn to accept, live with, and if ambitious enough, try to overcome.

 

[Scandic123]

You are not alone with this feeling, I feel the same way somtimes. Choices have something to do with, but it's not everything, otherwise no one would have problems. Social anxiety is mainly caused by the reactions of others to your actions and not your actions themselves. I don't know your story, but let's say you were loud as a kid and your parents told you to "be quiet". Then the subconscious part of your brain called the Amygdala would connect the action of being loud to negative reactions and try to make sure it doesn't happen again. So, you are not in control of the situation, but you can change it if you really want to, although it will not be easy.

 

[Quietguy11]

I was quite loud apparently as a child... I mean I loved life, and was a happy child, but when I hit adolescent hood and I got confronted more than once with how loud my voice was when I was excited about something, it made me revert into a shell, and basically become selectively mute. Now I am nervous to talk, and at night when some family members are sleeping and I'm up with someone else, when I talk I basically have to whisper because I can't tell if I'm being too loud and if I'm going to wake someone up. I know that's common decency, but it's the volume of my voice that I find hard to perceive sometimes, but that's not to say that I scream when I talk lol. I'm just generally excitable, well, at least I use to be that way.

 

[LA-girl]

All the time...

 

[Kiwong]

I probably should expect to be misunderstood, its how I react to misunderstanding that causes me pain.

 

[LA-girl]

I probably should expect to be misunderstood, its how I react to misunderstanding that causes me pain.

It all depends on why you are being misunderstood. For instance people can judge you for being very egocentrical for doing certain things, when the reason is that you do it because you need personal motivation (maybe you have an illness) or because you need to explain things. People can judge you for being lazy, when the truth is you have done more than you should. Of course it causes frustration.

 

[Capsaicin]

I'm the black sheep of generation Y and, to a lesser extent, my entire culture.

 

[LA-girl]

I think most of all why people misunderstand me is because they are always trying to label me, which is natural, but I find I'm kind of unlababal. Going through all the changes I have, changes me, but people usually always get me wong. And yes, it is annoying.

 

[LA-girl]

I'm the black sheep of generation Y and, to a lesser extent, my entire culture.

So how is it like, being the black sheep? Are you comfortable with it? Does it ever bother you?

 

[jaim38]

Yes, I get misunderstood a lot. Sometimes people interpret my shyness as romantic interest, when I'm really just shy and have no romantic intentions for that person. Sometimes my eye contact is interpreted as aggressiveness, people think I'm saying "bring it on! I want a fight!" and they glower at me.

 

[Kiwong]

It all depends on why you are being misunderstood. For instance people can judge you for being very egocentrical for doing certain things, when the reason is that you do it because you need personal motivation (maybe you have an illness) or because you need to explain things. People can judge you for being lazy, when the truth is you have done more than you should. Of course it causes frustration.

Of course I can get really upset and frustrated by what people might think, or I can focus on other thoughts instead. People judge all the time, people forgive all the time, people are unkind, people are kind. My reaction to that is what I can control, by not letting get to me as much.

 

[Quietguy11]

My quietness is always what's misunderstood the most. My friend came to me tonight, but this guy I don't see much, and haven't actually kept in touch for years, came to me and said (knowing about my nervousness in social situations) "How was your nervousness tonight? Were you OK?" (He didn't say this as an interrogation btw, he was being genuinely caring.) Anyway, I said that I was kind of nervous, and then he said "You know (referring to the people I was with tonight) we are pretty good people to be around." I felt a little tongue-tied thereon, because it was as if to say that my quietness and nervousness was because I didn't actually like the people I was around. That may be true based on some feelings I get, but my overall attitude is that I don't hate people, I just don't feel comfortable around people.