Severe Self-sabotage After "bad" Social Outcomes

[Beyond Words]

Whether it is a customer not responding, feeling misinterpreted, any "negative" outcome or inability to fully express myself during social interactions it often leads to a crappy feeling. I feel hopeless and unfulfilled with social interactions when the feeling arises, even though when I am more conscious during my interactions I do find relationships fulfilling and fun. The disgusting feeling triggers the urge to masturbate, avoid work, overeat and binge watch videos until the feeling stops. 

I used to be very social until I lost my voice during puberty. That shattered my ability to fully express myself for about 6 years until I rebuilt my voice. The past 3+ years I've focused on my career to the point that I've lost intimacy with everyone I know. I have people I can talk to but most of my friends live in other countries now and the ones nearby I usually talk to in regards to specific projects, activities etc. I've had to cut off 90% of my relationships because the relationship was either toxic or againt self-actualization.

I suspect my problem is a negative habit triggered by that bad feeling when I feel like the interaction didn't go as well as I expected or when I feel like I didn't or couldn't express myself fully. How can I overcome this habit? I know logically that I self-sabotage when the habit triggers and I know that in most cases my social interactions go quite well, but the habit persists.

I've been able to overcome all other bad habits and my life is well self-actualized in all areas except social / relationships.

I also tend to unconsciously reject girls and people who try to establish a friendship with me, probably because I've gotten attention regardless from my looks and achievements and because I've been psychologically hurt when being vulnerable to my dad.

Part of the solution I think involves dealing with the feeling. I've tried meditating right when it happens but it helps temporarily. I still feel it shortly after.

Edited January 31, 2017 by Beyond Words

[Visionary]

After every social interaction, are you obsessively replaying everything in your mind to critize the interactions? If so, you are a master of turning "positive" events into negative. It's a form of social anxiety and OCD.

What to do? First, approach meditation differently. The skills you learn during meditation, you MUST use them daily in every setting. Meditation is not just a blissful escape of an hour. It's a skill. A fundamental skill to learn how to guide your thoughts and emotions. I don't say "control", because this would mean RESISTANCE. That is the biggest problem. You resist every part of yourself. You have to start loving your dark side. And the good side of course. Fully embrace it. Embracing is not a "positive" act. It does not need pressure or force. It is complete surrender. So surrender the fight. Stop fighting life. 

You will learn how to do this gradually. Meditate more and use those skills in every practical setting. That's what its all about. 

[Beyond Words]

@Visionary Thank you! I've found that the issue arises when a negative feeling from a social interaction comes up and I disown it, effectively avoiding it until I'm left with no choice but to face it.

Improving my self-esteem and cultivating more independence from each individual person has helped a lot. So far the problem I've described above has been resolved.

Hope that helps anyone in a similar situation

[h inandout]

I am someone who has totally "failed" a lot.  So this idea of self-sabotage totally made sense to me, and I've been using it for a while now, but maybe self-sabotage is a limiting notion in and of itself.  What if what I'm experiencing is actually self-respect.  Like, the thing that is preventing me from simply asking the universe for what I want is an unconscious recognition of circumstances that have led to my suffering in the past?  Like what if I fall in with a guy too fast?  Jesus you can be so invested in somebody before you realize that they are not bringing out the best in you!  I know that I have a bit of panic when I meet someone cute or interesting because I know they might have a completely different idea about what is an acceptable or unacceptable pace for moving forward.  So I keep my distance.  But I deserve to at least acknowledge that I might want to experience having deeper conversations with someone, or perhaps hugging them, or anything that makes me feel more connected.  Maybe it will helps me to know that many of the people I want to be around have just as many road blocks as me from their previous relationships and they are comparing me to those other people.  So I should be the one to know myself more deeply and I should be the one who asks to move forward in a relationship, and I should have the integrity to allow them the space and time to unfold their own desire to reciprocate or reject.

[h inandout]

Go on a mini-journey!  You'd be surprised how easy it is for the universe to manifest your desires on a road trip or creative outing!  The universe found me a lot of beautiful teachers and practice relationships on my last journey because that's exactly what I was asking for.