Social input is incorrect

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This weekend my doctor suggested I discover how good I am at recognizing emotions by guessing the emotions of someone close to me and then asking them what they are really feeling. I went to visit my sister who helped me with this. I am correct about 50% of the time - mostly with major feelings. I found out something very important. When someone is simply tired or distracted I think that they are angry or annoyed. I've spent my entire life believing that all people just don't like me even though they say they do. I can't describe how I felt when I realized for the first time that my mom might actually like me! I feel like I should be really happy but instead I feel like I've been turned inside out! My entire method of dealing with people centers around a deep acceptance that my presence is inexplicably annoying and that all attempts at close friendships are impossible. I don't know what to feel right now. Has this happened to anyone else? How do you accept that the way you interact with the world is giving you incorrect information? How do you adjust how you are in the world? I know it's possible to get better at understanding facial expression and I'm going to work on that.

Sometimes I think my mum is annoyed or angry with me and when I ask her about it she says she's just bored or tried or one time kind-of down although other-times she is actually annoyed with me. I guess that's my default when trying to read other people, if I notice something's different about someone's tone or facial expression my first guess is that they're annoyed with me.

Learning to ask people what they are actually feeling is something I definitely need to learn to do!

Yeah, I'm only confident enough to do it with my mum. I used to ask her "are you mad at me?" but she hardly ever said yes though sometimes she would say she "wasn't angry but just annoyed because....." so now I've gotten in the habit of asking her "are you annoyed with me?".

I'm trying to make it a game with my sister. I will say "happy" or "angry" or whatever I think and then she will either say "yes" or "tired" or some other one word answer. I think with time it can become a normal part of our banter. I'm hoping to work with some other people but have noticed that I actually don't talk to people very much outside of work. So that makes it more of a challenge.

If I could read peoples' emotions better, my best friend might not hate me right now. Apparently I'm condecending, self-centered and a "dictionary mouth" and I never had the slightest impression that anything was remotely wrong until she exploded on me.

I often think that people being nice to me are condescending.

I've noticed a lot of people, and I am talking about adults, seem to have tantrums. I used to take every word said during an outburst as a fact for the speaker and consider that unless I knew it not to be, it was something I should believe.

Apparently people say things during an outburst to have an effect, usually to hurt or stop the person they are having it at. I'm careful and try only to say what I mean in the present and that I think will still be true later.

If I get angry I might feel that I never wanted to see or speak to the other person again but I don't say it knowing it might not be true later. Other people do seem to say really hurtful things. I don't know whether this is the case with your (former?) friend, but is it possible she was having an outburst during which she spoke carelessly, saying things she only meant for that moment? I am not sure the best way to handle this but one thing I've done when I wanted to preserve the relationship is to pretend the outburst never happened. I also have discovered that people sometimes deny the ugly words they have said, and they even seem to think it never happened. And tell me it didn't really.

The friendship changes, though. And there are only so many of these incidents before it's over. If it just happened once and there are unusual extenuating circumstances, though, it's possible your friend's feelings were hurt by you or someone else. But it's a lot of work to plow through this morass of negative feeling and people not saying what they mean, not meaning what they say. I guess I'm just saying her outburst at you may be about her being upset more than about you really being the bad things she said you are. And she may even know that.

That's complicated. People say I'm wrong about them all the time. But what it usually is is that they don't want to say and/or I often understand the tone correctly but not the complexity.

If someone looks like they have a negative emotion, I assume they are mad at me, but they might instead have a headache or be late or even be angry with someone else for me.

I think through what is likely based on the situation and the facts I know to try to correct for not immediately registering the details of people's emotions.

I think of the social input I get as incomplete rather than incorrect, and for me that seems like it is related to difficulty recognizing complexities about emotion. It's a lot of work but one can think things through and compensate for alexithymia, if that's what's behind it for you, too.

You may be correct about that. She apologised later and we're in the middle of tentatively rebuilding bridges, but I don't really know what's going to happen in the future; she's never been angry with me before.

Nice! Even if it isn't how it was, it helps me to have someone back off after they get angry. When it isn't about me, it's very confusing having someone act angry and say all kinds of nasty harsh things over something else bothering them.

I hope things work out with your friend!

I just feel like most ppl hate me, unless they tell me differently

I just feel like most ppl hate me, unless they tell me differently

This makes sense and makes me feel better about it. I can deal much better with the idea of not getting all of the information as opposed to the idea that I can't trust anything my brain tells me. Thanks!

Yes! This used to make me very angry when I was younger. I also immediately want to know what they want from me.