How do I not beat myself up for social mistakes?

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Hello all,

I'd like some advice on how to process past social faux pas in a healthy way without beating myself up about it.

I get so embarrassed and ashamed when I do or say the wrong thing. Unfortunately, it is in my nature to sometimes get caught up in the moment and say or do something out of excitement without thinking first.

Do any of you have any techniques for dealing with these ruminating thoughts of embarrassment and shame?

CFL

I don't know dude. The only thing I've ever found that works is time. The older I get the less I care about it.

I know that's no help at all.

The weird thing is that the memories of those past social mistakes don't seem to get re-evaluated in the context of my increasing indifference. When I re-live those memories I still feel the shame and embarrassment, although if they happened fresh today I might not feel so bad about it.

So I think it's not what happened, so much as how my brain reacted at the time that I'm remembering. If that makes any sort of sense.

My old method of dealing with accumulated faux-pax was to move interstate every 2.5 years

Sometimes I take comfort in the fact that I'm not alone in making social mistakes.

Plenty of people have made them before me and plenty people will after me.

It's time to be a little selfish, you can't please everyone, so it's best not to dwell on the bad experiences. And instead think of the moments where you said something good.

Socialising is hard anyway, even the most positive people can get into arguments just for the fact that they are too positive.

So, unless you say out loud heil hitler or something like that, most likely people will just move on. We all live our own lives, it's very unlikely other people will even remember what you said.

One thing I remember a few years ago that helped me whenever my day was a complete social and executive function disaster was

明日は明日の風が吹く

Or (in my own terrible translation)

Tomorrow blows the wind of tomorrow.

It means if today (or everything up to now) was screwed up, you'll have a new chance tomorrow. And tomorrow might be different from today, both in who you are and what you're able to do, and what the world around is like and how it reacts to you. The wind blows another way, so even if today it all went against you, it might go very well tomorrow. Nobody knows.

In short, acknowledge the disaster that was today, let it slip with a good night's sleep, and enjoy tomorrow instead.

Also, what might be a huge mistake to you might actually be very insignificant. Unless somebody actually died, it's unlikely anybody cares in the long run.

When you get older, you don't care as much as now.

I moved a lot and I am living very much isolated. I do have a girlfriend but it's long distance. I like it that way.

The interesting thing about shameful social happenings is, that the other people forget about it very quickly.
I once asked somebody .. do you remember when "$§"&%$/% .. and the person didn't know what I am talking about. So I still was ashamed about something the other person didn't even remember any more.

I think the stuff we do is not as bad as we feel it is.

Being so I'm semi in denial about having AS whilst hanging on to the bit of hope that I was just misdiagnosed, I do become really upset and angry with myself whenever I make a social mistake. I also worry afterwards in case I sounded insensitive, even though this doesn't often happen, as lucky for me I do have filters when it comes to knowing social etiquette. But sometimes I can blurt out something then afterwards immediately think ''s**t, I don't think that sounded right.'' Like when I was at my partner's brother's funeral and all his family were there, at the wake someone said that it was nice to all be together and catch up. I responded with ''yeah, it beats being at work!'' Then I immediately wondered if that was the right thing to say on a funeral day, as it might have made me sound like I was treating the funeral as a casual social gathering rather than a sad day. But funerals are a social event and it's hard not to get caught in the moment at the wake when everyone is chatting and laughing and eating. So I wasn't quite sure if that seemed inappropriate to say or not. But I just meant it as an agreement that we were all together. But I'm worried others might have taken it the wrong way and thought I was just being selfish. But I wasn't at all. I came to the funeral to support my partner and his family, and during the funeral service I sobbed quietly and held my partner's hand tightly so that he felt comforted.

I can usually think of lies on the spot, white lies I mean. Like the other day at work when the boss came in, and he's very particular about employees working rather than sitting around. He asked where one of the workers were, and I knew she was having a coffee at that time even though she wasn't entitled to a break then and had already had her break, but I just said that I didn't know, because I didn't want her to get into trouble. I also had to lie to him about what I did the day before; I had mopped while she had swept, but I like mopping and she likes sweeping, but whenever the boss comes in he makes us swap from what we had done the previous day. I really didn't feel like sweeping and I knew she wouldn't want to mop, so I said that I had swept yesterday so that I can be on mopping again that day lol. The boss wasn't there yesterday when we were there so wouldn't have known what we were doing.

Also what would an Aspie typically do if a parent joked for you to step on their kids? When I was at a family social gathering a few months ago, two toddlers were playing in the middle of the floor, and when I carefully stepped past them their mother joked to me to ''just step on them'', but I knew what she meant was ''I told them not to play there but they are anyway, so if someone does step on them it'll be their (the kid's) own fault''. I just laughed and said ''they're all right playing there, and I have eyes.'' But I know that if I took her joke literally and just stepped on her children (not that I would even if someone seriously asked me to lol), there would be an unpleasant scene, the mother would be furious with me, and ambulances could even be called and both the little ones would be screaming and crying. I don't think a well-intentioned Aspie would take something like that literally though.

People who live here socialize differently.

Normal people get the gist of a conversation.
They skim over text.
Some folks here obsess over every detail and expect people to fully take in a wall of text.

I remember my childhood in which the average kid struggled with simple story problems.
They just hit that wall and couldn't get past it. If they could they would have done so much better in school.
Nowadays people want to be Master Electricians but avoid going into trades.
Not because they can't do an 8000 hour apprenticeship, but because they know they can't pass the licensing exams.
Everyone knows how they struggled with exams.

Normal people constantly engage in social activities so it easy for them to forget and move on.

Lot of normal people have trouble with filling out online forms. When I had my colonoscopy I filled out my form online and jumped ahead of those who had to talk to a nurse to fill them out!

I enjoy golf because even the best of them make mistakes.
Rory won the Grand Slam in golf despite some horrendous errors in his last round!
Doesn't matter, as he made some amazing shots to win! He is now among the six best golfers in history!
He was somehow able to recover from his bad shots. His playing partner for that day did not.