I’ve always been an extroverted introvert (aka I love hanging out with people, as long as I can recharge my batteries alone afterwords) but I just feel like since the pandemic and lockdowns my anxiety around social events or just speaking to others in general has escalated tenfold.

Since restrictions have been easing up in my country I’ve been meeting up with people, and guaranteed every single time I come home I spend hours thinking along the lines of “why did you say that?” “everyone hates you now” “you’ve made an idiot of yourself”. Like, completely irrationally. For example I spoke to a person 5 hours ago and now I’m in bed thinking “why did you say that stupid thing that makes you look like a horrible person”, last week I met with colleagues and worried all evening that I had been too negative, and have often met up with family or friends and thought I was being pretentious or uptight or just generally insufferable for days afterwards for no particular reason. People never tell me anything for me to think this way, it just feels like my brain sabotaging itself. It’s kind of got to the point where I dread social events/talking to people now, which I never used to in the past. 

I guess this post is partly a way for me to keep my mind off the interaction I had earlier, but also as a way to see if anyone has noticed a similar change since the pandemic? I feel like all those months of socialising with just my close family has really took its toll on my social/interaction skills and awareness. Any help or tips on how to stop beating myself up about every single social interaction I have would be greatly appreciated too!