When Do We Stop Feeling Awkward?

Right.

I was listening to a couple therapists online talk about how awkwardness relates to childhood PTSD.

Hm.

Because if you are neglected, left alone, you don't know how to deal with people.

You're gonna be very awkward, so you're gonna go retaliate back into your house, and then those negative traits or those awkward traits are... they're just gonna impend on each other.

Also, if you had to, like, rely on yourself, you're going to be a very pushy kid, and you're not gonna read the room when you're, like, pushing, pushing, pushing for things, which is something-

Mm

... that I had to learn kind of later in life.

When you're left alone, and, like, you need things to...

You need to be taken care of when you're sick.

So no one takes care of you, so you have to do it yourself, and you have to push for it, or you're gonna die.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, you don't learn these skills when you get older, that you're just pushing and running over people's boundaries, which is awkward.

Wow.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah.

I never thought about awkward being related to death.

But funny you should mention boundaries, 'cause I was trying to think when we decided on this episode, I was like, "What's the difference between being awkward and being embarrassed?" Like, they feel very similar-

Yeah, yeah

...

in the Venn diagram.

But I think with, like, awkwardness for me, and all of my, most of my interactions of being awkward have all been when I'm trying to, like, uphold a boundary, and it's awkward.

And there's, like, tension.

There's, like, social tension.

Like, currently you feel that way? Like, or was childhood Ashlye, like, trying to maintain boundaries?