@Blackcloud 

Reading that was like an out of body experience or something.  I get those same frustrations with being asked about my social skills, especially initiating conversations.  I didn't talk about it for most of my life because i got so frustrated with my feelings just being dismissed with statements like "try and do it" and "what's stopping you?".  I spent most of my life avoid working on this because I knew it was something really struggled with and all i knew was the no ones else seemed to, so why should i be surprised when people dismissed how difficult it was for me?

I struggle to even describe why i find it so hard.  It's like something innate inside me that screams at me to not do it.  I have developed a better understanding over the past 10-12 months, from learning about attachment issues and trauma responses.  I'm slowly improving, but certain things are still very hard, like initiating conversations, or calling people out of the blue.  There's just a severe anxiety like reaction to that that i can't control.

It's great that you have someone nice to talk to about this, but i feel like it would be more helpful if she understood more about just how difficult it is and what needs to be worked on, and even then, how it takes time and small steps.  Maybe you could talk about that and how frustrating it is with her, if you haven't already.

I started small.  When someone said hi to me, instead of just saying 'hi' back, I would follow up with a "how are you?".  It's a small thing just to add an open ended question like that, but a hard thing at the start.  It still feels weird sometimes but it's practice.  I started to feel more comfortable talking to people i didn't know and it slowly started to become a bit easier.  It's still a massive work in progress, but i've found it's just about improving one small thing at a time.

So thank you for sharing your debrief, i found it really interesting to read.  I wondered if you feel similar to what i described and if you feel like she is pressuring you to do too much too quickly to improve these social skills.  I'm just very curious what you think, if you don't mind sharing.  I'm still new at this and trying to figure it out myself, and hearing other peoples thoughts is very helpful.  I hope you find it helpful as well.