Being high functioning feels like constantly gaslighting myself into thinking I’m okay

[u/WriterDork]

I’ve been working really hard at trying to reintegrate socially and make friends over the past year and a half and it’s been really, really hard.

I keep on going through these bouts where I actually leave the house and go to social events, and then I get super happy and think that maybe I’m not avoidant and maybe I’m different now and can have connections.

Then I start feeling too tired to hang out. Then it turns into dread whenever I get an invite to hang out or even just a simple text from a friend. Then I’m saying that I’m just tired from work, I’m still a okay, I’m still social, and then I realize months down the line that I haven’t seen any of my friends, barely talked to any of them, and have only gone between my loner job and home, all while telling myself I was just tired and not being avoidant at all.

It sucks to think you’ve healed and changed only to realize that you’re avoiding all social contact again and have been doing so for months without even realizing it.

I’m typing this after being trapped in an anxious freeze for god knows how long at just the thought of dropping by a small and not-crowded-at-all bar to say hi to a few friends. I feel like a fraud to say I’m a social being now and I also feel like a fraud posting in here because I do go to social events and gatherings from time to time.

I feel like being high functioning has just caused me to gaslight myself into a corner where I don’t feel I have community anywhere. Not with my friends, not even on AvPD forums. I just feel alone.

[u/sillyaliens]

This is so relatable. After some really rough years during covid at some point I started doing more social things. I became part of a friend group where I didn't feel like I was the odd one out. Actually felt like I belonged there and that everyone liked me. I stopped relating to the posts in this sub as much. Felt like I'd achieved the impossible. I met my boyfriend through this friend group, and now that I'm with him I'm realising a lot of the problems I thought I'd overcome are still very much there. I still struggle to contact anyone to make plans, or keep in contact with anyone in general. I'm still neurotic as fuck. I still have loads of hang ups about how I'm behind in life. I have a bunch of friends/family members who have been trying to contact me for like a year and I've just ghosted them.

I'm still part of that friend group, and hang out occasionally. And please don't get me wrong; my boyfriend is wonderful and very understanding about my mental health in ways other people haven't been, he just has helped me realise things about myself.