Reddit reviews Improve Your Social Skills
We found 10 Reddit comments about Improve Your Social Skills. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
We found 10 Reddit comments about Improve Your Social Skills. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Diagnosed 40+ and still getting the hang of it. It gets better. This book is extremely helpful: Improve Your Social Skills.
I read through the whole thing and I relate to a lot of it. I hope sharing my experience will help you. It does have a (somewhat) happy ending.
The first time I thought about ending it all, I was 10. I was always the odd one. Bullied in school, no real close friends, etc. I didn't understand why it was that way. I was always nice to everyone, even if a bit shy. My homeroom teacher told me it's my fault for not reaching out to my classmates more. :/
Living home was quite bad. My parents would dump their emotional issues on me. Complaining about work, about each other, etc. And never listening to me or my problems. They were quite awful in other ways too.
I had big dreams as a kid too. Being a famous researcher, or having my own metal band with deep lyrics about depression etc. But I wasn't good enough for either of those. Realizing that hit me hard. In highschool, I ended up being quite withdrawn. I figured if I hate myself enough, few things anyone could say would still hurt me. My role model was Daria ;)
When I met my boyfriend at 20, I thought my life would change. He loved and accepted me for who I was. So I packed my bags and move to a foreign country to be with him. I figured "now is when my life really begins! I will have someone who loves me and supports me, and new opportunities to make friends!". He would "save" me.
Didn't work out that way. We both ended up dealing with severe depression. Often, I felt like I had to support him more than he supported me. So much for being "saved". I tried therapy, but the psychologist couldn't understand me at all. Her "advice" was more distressing than helpful.
My next hopeful moment was at 26, when I figured out I have ADHD. Reading all these posts on how awesome meds are, I figured I would take them and my life would suddenly be great, I would finally reach my true potential and do all these things I wanted to do. Many things improved, but my life still sucked. I crashed and burned hard.
Finally, a few months ago, at 28, I found a therapist that actually "got" me. She helped me understand why I do the things I do. She helped me figure out how my brain works and what it needs. I learned a lot about myself, and I finally feel content with my life, and hopeful for the future.
___
Some key points that I learned:
There are many more ways in which I changed. A good therapist really makes all the difference in the world. Life is still a struggle, but I'm happier now than I've ever been in my life.
___
TL;DR: No, it won't magically "get better". But you can make it better, one step at a time. Find a new therapist, keep looking until you find one that really gets you and helps you. See what you can improve about yourself. It won't happen over night, but in a few months, people will barely recognize you. But you'll know it's still you, you just have the tools you need to deal with life.
There is a great book written by Daniel Wendler, called "Improve Your Social Skills"
Why this is relevant: Daniel Wendler has Asperger's Syndrome, and it is written in a very straight-forward, thinking-person-oriented way. I highly recommend it. Here's a link to it on Amazon
Edited because sometimes m my typing s sucks
I've read a bunch of casual conversation books because I realized I wasn't good at it either. They were mostly too general to be useful but I did find this good one. He breaks down what makes up a conversation. Why some conversations are great and some sputter and lose steam. To have a great one you have to get the other person to want to talk about themselves. And you do that by asking questions in a certain way. Not "How was your weekend?" which is a yes or no answer, but "What did you do this weekend?" which opens up the talking to other options. Lots of good stuff in there.
As far as poor self-esteem goes... There's always going to be somebody out there who thinks you're a loser or whatever. But that's just their opinion; there are others who don't think that way. Eye of the beholder. The way other people think has more to do with them than you. This is why you can't rely on others too much for validation. Why let your self-esteem be determined by other people's rules and whims? For example, so what if you've never had a girlfriend... that's someone else's idea of what you need to be a winner in life, but why should you buy into that? Your life, your rules.
At some point you need to say, "OK, but what do I think about myself? What do I want? What about me? What do I want out of my life?" Once you establish your own identity a bit more and learn to self-validate, it becomes a lot easier to make friends because you don't need them as much. You just pursue your own interests, talk to the people you want to talk to, initiate friendships by asking them to hang out, etc. It becomes easier to handle rejection because you aren't so reliant for approval, because you self-approve. Other people have their wants, sometimes they match yours, sometimes they don't, that's the way it goes.
After that it's more a matter of learning common social etiquette. Western culture has its norms, other culture has theirs, etc. It's standard protocol for interpersonal relationships. There are a million self-help books / courses for this sort of thing. This may be helpful, written by someone with Aspergers: https://www.amazon.com/Improve-Social-Skills-Daniel-Wendler-ebook/dp/B00NJNQ3U6
Social skills are like piano practice, you practice them and learn them. If you struggle to learn things, break it into components and pursue mastery on one thing at a time in baby-steps.
Autogenerated.
IamA social skills expert who overcame the social struggles of Asperger's! Both of my books are free on Kindle today, and my newest TEDx talk was just published, so AMA!
Hi everyone! My name is Daniel Wendler, and I'm the author of ImproveYourSocialSkills.com, a comprehensive online guide to social skills. My TEDx talk, "What Being Autistic Taught Me About Being Human" was just released on Youtube, so I thought I would do an AMA to celebrate!
A few things you might be interested to know about me:
Thanks for reading! I'll be available for the next few hours, so feel free to ask me anything about social skills, Asperger's, giving a TEDx talk, or anything else!
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Updated at 2018-05-13 21:00:12.692756
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Oh My, I had forgotten this thread. Let me reply anyway!
Improve your Social Skills
This book is written by a man with Aspergers. It has a lot of useful advice. Needless to say, as I'm forgetful and absent minded, I used a highlighter a lot!
What Every Body is Saying
It contains a lot of info on body language, and I have found it helpful. There are some tips to come across more confident. You can also check videos on the web.
How to Talk to Kids So Kids will Listen
Don't misjudge the book! It may seem as not suitable for adults. But it contains a lot of tips that can help improve adult on adult relationships. There are some parts that talk about how we deny people their right to experience a certain feeling. For example :
Person a: My dog died. I'm so sad.
Person b: Oh, but cheer up! you'll have other dogs in the future! don't dwell on it, it's no use! vs.
Person b: I see. It must be tough. You really cared about your dog.
It really makes you ponder.
And of course the most well known books, "how to win friends and influence people", etc. I have been also looking for books on how to hold a conversation, but haven't had much luck yet.
sorry for the late reply
Best of luck!
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This should be the book link for Australia :) All of the content in the book is also available on my site in case the link doesn't work.
Read Improve Your Social Skills by Daniel Wendler and How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie.
The first book is written by an aspie who has done several TEDtalks and run his own business. The second is a world-renowned classic must-read when it comes to interpersonal relationships and socializing.