Newbie here! How do I get treated with respect, and not come across as incompetent?

I’m not sure if I’m doing this right, or if its okay to ask questions like this here, so feel free to lemme know and I can put it in the right place haha.

So just a quick background of myself, I do have a severe learning disability and am a diagnosed schizophrenic. This often leaves me distracted and ditsy, but if I commit to something I can learn it well enough. Despite these characteristics I am an outwardly ‘normal’ person. I’m subtly socially awkward but I can hold a good conversation, I hold myself well enough, I’m respectful, I’m a clean-cut looking fellow and I care a lot about those around me.

The issue I am running into is that many people in my life begin treated me pretty normal or even equally, but given a bit of time, I’ve noticed a correlation of people beginning to treat my like I am incompetent and it escalates to super demeaning and patronizing interactions. I’m constantly over explained things at work despite performing them just fine, or trying to explain that I already know respectfully, this treatment is very similar to school.

Now ongoing to relationships, I’ve noticed that my friends start doing this as well. I express an upset expecting people to be a listening ear (I know they do it for others) and I explain that I need someone to just listen, but everyone chastises me for mistakes I made, or actions I should have taken. (People ‘should’ all over me all of the time :p).

Generally I approach these interactions nicely, just trying to keep the peace. Due to my mental health, constantly being treated less then human, and I’m already working my *** off to function in society, it triggers my episodes, and I do hear a voices and hallucinate (I can distinguish reality so I try to isolate myself and go through it with self-talk and distractions)

These episodes always leave me very depressed and very much suicidal. I’m getting to a point where I am growing a lot more cynical, frustrated, and short with everyone around me. I’m generally a bubbly nice person, but I feel like I need to protect my mental health against nearly everyone in my life and the only way I can do that so far is telling people off and not treating people with as much respect.

This is super sucky because all I’d like is to be treated normally, or like how I generally treat people in my life. I don’t feel like having to be outwardly mean or standoffish is the only way to be treated with some respect, but so far its the only way I’ve come to realize that works for me.

Thanks for ready all of this and helping me find answers! I know its a doozy. :stuck_out_tongue:

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I have a really hard time reading walls of text and long posts, but I wanted to say welcome.

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I appreciate it! It is most definitely a large wall of text. haha

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That’s tough.

You don’t want to be treated like an idiot, but you also don’t want to be a jerk…

Very difficult.

I’ll think on this one.

Welcome to the forum.

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Thank you for taking the time and welcoming me. :slight_smile:

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Welcome, I agree with @anon54386108, can’t see a positive solution…

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Welcome to the forum.

It sounds to me like you don’t get enough credit for functioning as well as you do. It’s too bad the people in your life can’t offer you more support and leave the criticism out of it for awhile. I wish you luck in trying to cope with your problems. Maybe you’ll find some much needed support here with some people who can understand your struggles a little better. One can hope.

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Yeah :confused: I’m thinking building up a lot more confidence might be the best option for me. I need to find an alright middle ground to be able to approach people when they’re treating me like this.

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Agreed! I didn’t honestly realize such a resource was available, and I can already tell I’ll be able be able to talk with people I have something in common with, which honestly is something I’ve never had in my life so I’m excited. :slight_smile:

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Don’t worry about being incompetent. We all are depressed or schizophrenic. Its like a really dysfunctional family on here. If u contribute u’ll get support back

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I intend to! Love your username btw. :stuck_out_tongue:

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we’re all just little honey bees, like the little girl in the music video who couldn’t get anyone interested in her dancing until she found a field of other people all dressed like honey bees dancing just like her.

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Welcome to the forum!

I’m sorry people aren’t treating you right I’ve struggled to get treated well by people too. The best thing I can recommend is to try and branch out to other people that have common interests I find it’s easier to talk to people that way.

I hope you feel better soon!

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I know it won’t be much help but maybe of solace to know that I am in a verrrrrrry similar position with the way people treat me. The difference for me being that others don’t recognize or remember my cognitive difficulties and I often get things like “it’s common sense” or “cmon now I just told you the answer to that” … it’s not a good feeling.

I find that making time to talk to these people about it helps. I try to find times where I am not already upset and also where they won’t feel the need to get defensive. (I.e. Right after they’ve just over explained something to you)

Just a random time like before your shift begins or in between episodes of a show.

i like to use language that doesn’t make the other person feel like I’m pointing fingers too. (I.e. I’ve noticed -insert action- happening and idk if you mean to but when you -insert their specific action- it makes me feel terrible)

Not sure if that will do much because life isn’t always that easy but sometimes it works for me so I thought id share.

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For starters - stop posting walls of texts! Welcome to the forum!

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Hi, welcome to the forum!

I couldn’t read all your post, too much text with no break but I’m sure I’ll love your future posts :smile:

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Do we have a mod that can break up the text here?

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Done! 1515151515

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The best of the best moonbeam💜

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You need to do the hokey pokey and turn yourself around cuz that’s what it’s all about :blush::blush:

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