About interpretation, anxiety & asking questions.

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Today I've emailed my biology teacher a couple of times because I needed help with something. Sometimes I have a hard time interpreting written things. I tend to take written things very literally. Filling out forms is something I find very difficult because of that and I often need help with doing so (I always have ask what they mean by words like "usually" and "normal", where the emphasis is etc). As soon as I'm not sure about what something means (especially when it's a question on a test like it was today) I feel like I have to ask to make sure I don't make any mistakes. It makes me feel stupid and it makes me anxious. I sort of imagine the teacher (or whoever I'm asking) thinking I'm very annoying. What makes me feel even more stupid is I figured out the answer to the questions I emailed today by myself and now I've probably annoyed the teacher in vain.

I know it might "just" be part of my social anxiety but do you ever worry that people might find you annoying and think you're stupid for asking questions? It makes me feel really insecure.

Always. I don't know if it's social anxiety or not but I get really nervous asking questions. I tend to ask a lot of them in rapid succession and people don't always respond well to that. Either that or I assume they think I'm stupid for asking so many of them.

You've probably experienced dumb, impatient people that don't take the time to try to relate to you. There are a lot of them. But I've met a couple really great people who I can ask any question and they don't make me feel like I'm dumb. That's why I think it's not that I'm being annoying but that other people are just closed-minded. And so you kind of have to learn to be patient with their dumb impatience, if it ever happens.

Yeah, just had an incident today actually... I get caught up in my own personal world that I appear self-absorbed, thinking the world revolves around me, but it's not really that... it's just that I can't see the minds of others; I don't know what's going on, 'behind the scenes' and overall with situations. So I just have to think about things relating to me, makes it easier for me than trying to figure out that which is unknowable.

So today I was asking about my work performance and was told someone would be taking over on the weekends to do prep and I would just work 4 days a week instead of 5... to me that seemed like a punishment, like I can't handle it on my own on the weekends so they're hiring a replacement, and my boss just said that the guy they hired was available on the weekends only.... (facepalm)

I completely understand... in fact, on good days I can make light of these blunders... and on bad ones I well... yeah, ya know what I mean so won't go there.