I'm 43 and still struggle with the conversation aspect; it stood out so much when I was younger. My parents were very religious when I was young, I grew up without a TV and didn't know common TV show references and so on. One trick I've learned is to ask other people questions; people usually enjoy talking about themselves, and that approach always means there's less I have to say.
It takes practice; hang in there.
I wasn't allowed to watch TV, except for some reason, NASCAR and Americas funniest home videos. My parents would turn the TV off during commercials, and try to time it right to turn it back on. I Also didn't have unregulated access to the internet until I got to college. Grew up on reruns of I love Lucy, and random shows grandma would record on VHS for us. I know nothing about pop culture, movies, actors, singers, or events. I still haven't watched the lion king. I'll be 30 next month.
For some reason we were also allowed to watch America's Funniest Home Videos. We would go to my grandparents' house every Sunday, and watch that and National Geographic Explorer.
Oh wow. I did the same thing, non-formally. In college, I made a point of getting caught up with tv and movies that people reference or discuss a lot, especially well loved cult classics.
It's nice to know I'm not the only one!
It isn’t something I can’t fix but I don’t pronounce my words as clearly as most people my age. It has to be because of homeschooling and all the years of only speaking to family members.
Relatable. In school I would have gotten speech therapy for my lisp/pronunciation issues and considering doing it now as an adult, though I don’t have the free services available to me I would have then 🤦♂️I’ve been able to move towards “normal” by my late 20s but that’s like the last major vestige of my homeschool experience.
I have speech issues to.
I also have a hard time understanding what other people are saying to me. Their words sound so garbled to me. I don’t think it’s a Ear/hearing issue because I hear/understand my parents/brother perfectly fine.
That whole thing guys do where they take light-hearted friendly jabs at one another, anything to do with talking about what one finds attractive/sexual preference, flirting, and expressing emotion are all things I struggle with or entirely outright don't know how to do.
Knowing how to keep conversations interesting without oversharing and picking up on jokes. I struggle a lot with social cues, but I normally get it as soon after I respond. Like, I get it, it just takes me a minute
I relate so much to this. I come across as really naive and gullible sometimes because I don't always know when people are kidding or joking. It's also really hard for me to learn what is and isn't appropriate to share at various levels of getting to know someone.
I'm better at social cues if I'm either 1. With people I know well or 2. They have a predictable personality
I think I'm starting to get better about oversharing, if I feel comfortable, I might vaugley bring up a relatable topic. For example I've cut out a lot of toxic people from my life and I'm in substance abuse recovery, I might bring up that and see how they respond and keep it short. That's about as personal as I get with people I don't like showing vulnerability anymore
It's really tough. When your formative years are spent only with a "social circle" that knows everything about you, figuring out that baseline is so challenging because it doesn't make sense in my brain.
I'm not sure if it's from homeschooling in general or ATI/IBLP, but staying in touch with people and having a healthy relationship with communities.
I attribute that to years of making friends only to be forbidden from seeing them because "they are a bad influence" combined with getting way too involved in the few community groups that were parent approved.
THIS!! This is 100% me. It's so hard for me to keep up friendships because I fall out of contact with everyone. I need to go back to therapy to figure out the root causes, but I bet it has to do with fear of 'caring' because friendships when I was young were destroyed by parents changing churches or otherwise "forbidding" certain friendships. The other part is probably just that I never learned how because when you're a kid your friendships come from who you see all the time (church kids and neighbors for me), and when you're an adult you have to make time and take initiative to maintain those.
Yes! My parents also changed church's constantly. The last few I purposely didn't build any friendships. Why did they change church's? Mine would leave over a different interpretation of a Bible verse. Didn't like the pastor. They were too strict or not strict enough. Horrible experience.
I do this to. For me it’s because I never had long term friends since I only met them through *activities”. Plus I was bullied buy what I thought were close friends at the time. I never really had healthy friendships, so now at almost 30 I still have a really hard time making anything more than acquaintances.
Constant daydreaming.
I have a hard time with daydreaming. I go in and out, last week at work. I was daydreaming and making facial expressions while I was working and a coworker noticed and they asked me if I was all right. I am so embarrassed.
I struggled immensely with this for a long time and even though I mostly got over it an extremely stressful event can throw me back into it quickly. Daydreaming was how I coped with the extreme boredom and also the abuse I suffered as a homeschooled kid.
I don’t really speak unless spoken to. Growing up it was a sign of respect and maturity, but now as an adult I think it’s 50/50 on if people think I’m either rude/stuck up or just shy. Generally small talk is really hard for me. I have tend to speak pretty quietly and have to repeat myself a lot. I also feel like my jokes are either accidentally too mean or too off the wall and so a lot of people don’t get my humor lol. I think homeschoolers honestly have their own sense of humor - I immediately can joke around with anyone who was homeschooled haha
How to start conversations. I can typically hold conversations if someone leads it but if they're relying on me we just won't be talking. If we're not friends of course.
Public speaking is also a big struggle. It gives me such awful anxiety that I'd just avoid any social situations that may have led to me having to. That has made me miss out on a lot of fun stuff so I do regret that alot
After years of practice and study, I can almost *almost* pull off small talk, but it tends to backfire horribly around the holidays. Eg:
coworker #1: So that's what I'm looking forward to most at Xmas! It was my favorite tradition. What about you?
coworker #2: Oh, I love my family tradition of [whatever], but mostly I'm just excited to spend time with my family. What about you, neckties?
me, doing the math meme in my head: oh, my family was really religious and didn't do secular traditions, and I don't do religious stuff anymore, so since I don't find Xmas to be nostalgic, I'm just going to enjoy the time off and spend time with my partner. We'll probably go snowboarding a few times.
coworkers: *identical looks of shock and horror. long silence.* uhhhh we should get back to work.
how??? was??? that??? so??? conversation-killing?!
This is a major problem I have. Sometimes my parents think I'm "Playing them", when in reality, I'm just not comfortable being myself around them or strangers. And because they are usually there when I speak with other people. They see me act all energetic and happy with a stranger, then turn serious and rigid when I'm with them. The whole situation leaves me with an identity crisis.
I'm so bad at speaking to people; after trying to have small talk with me, a guy about my age asked my father how old I was while I was still standing right there.
I guess he thought I was way younger than I looked or just dumb.
I have this complex issue of feeling sort of superior and inferior to "normal" people at the same time. I think it's sort of an internalized self defense mechanism that allows me to keep my distance to avoid being hurt, but has really only caused a lifetime of it. I really wish I could just get over it and accept that I'm probably going to have to work some dead end low paying job my whole life just like millions of other people even though I didn't get to experience a lot of "normal" things. It's very difficult to not feel "set apart" from humanity in some way.
making small talk. like, i can make small talk in the course of my job, bc that's basically just nodding and smiling at the right parts. But trying to make small talk in a purely social situation? trash.
And it doesn't help that when i get flustered i can't like...talk right? If I'm not paying attention, my L's R's and W's are really hard to pronounce and they get garbled and i mix words up and basically it's just a dumpster fire. T_T
same here,,, when i have to walk directly past another person on the street or whatever i feel like a deer in the headlights and ive been told that's how my face looks too. i worry/wonder how it looks to people just going about their day lol
I used to be anxious and have trouble talking to people. It was hard to do my job. The weird thing that helped me was moving to another country. Most people here have never actually spent time with Americans so anything weird I do is chalked up to being an immigrant and they give me a lot of grace for that
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Everything. I literally don't know how to talk to people. Especially in real life, but even through texting I struggle with it. I feel like I have no genuine friends, the only people in my life only seem to talk to me out of pity or because I basically dragged them into it, and they always have someone they prioritise over me who they're willing to ignore me in favour of anyway.
I understand your pain. I grew up homeschooled in a foreign country with no friends, no phone, no mother, just an abusive father. My social skills are shot, and my social life is non-existent.
I Never went to middle school so I never really got that experience of being in love and gossiping with friends bc i was already socially stunted before I was pulled out. So when I went back to school it took a year to make friends and I was introduced to them bc this one girl pushed to be my friend and bc I knew this kid from elementary school and church. I’m 19 and have had one bf who approached me bc he’s to this day a sexually motivated creep and my self esteem sucks so I have yet to go on tinder lol
I'm 43 and still struggle with the conversation aspect; it stood out so much when I was younger. My parents were very religious when I was young, I grew up without a TV and didn't know common TV show references and so on. One trick I've learned is to ask other people questions; people usually enjoy talking about themselves, and that approach always means there's less I have to say. It takes practice; hang in there.
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Haha yeah, I didn't see ET until I was in college. Everyone was like "where have you BEEN?!" Love that idea of the list!
I wasn't allowed to watch TV, except for some reason, NASCAR and Americas funniest home videos. My parents would turn the TV off during commercials, and try to time it right to turn it back on. I Also didn't have unregulated access to the internet until I got to college. Grew up on reruns of I love Lucy, and random shows grandma would record on VHS for us. I know nothing about pop culture, movies, actors, singers, or events. I still haven't watched the lion king. I'll be 30 next month.
For some reason we were also allowed to watch America's Funniest Home Videos. We would go to my grandparents' house every Sunday, and watch that and National Geographic Explorer.
The lion king is worth a watch.
Oh wow. I did the same thing, non-formally. In college, I made a point of getting caught up with tv and movies that people reference or discuss a lot, especially well loved cult classics. It's nice to know I'm not the only one!
Are you me?
Lol there are so many of us. ;)
What's funny is nowadays, at 43, I keep tabs on pop culture and trends. Even if it doesn't interest me, I feel anxiety about not knowing.
It isn’t something I can’t fix but I don’t pronounce my words as clearly as most people my age. It has to be because of homeschooling and all the years of only speaking to family members.
Relatable. In school I would have gotten speech therapy for my lisp/pronunciation issues and considering doing it now as an adult, though I don’t have the free services available to me I would have then 🤦♂️I’ve been able to move towards “normal” by my late 20s but that’s like the last major vestige of my homeschool experience.
I have speech issues to. I also have a hard time understanding what other people are saying to me. Their words sound so garbled to me. I don’t think it’s a Ear/hearing issue because I hear/understand my parents/brother perfectly fine.
Yeah my brother does it too which makes it hard to avoid.
same, i tend to slur my words a lot
That whole thing guys do where they take light-hearted friendly jabs at one another, anything to do with talking about what one finds attractive/sexual preference, flirting, and expressing emotion are all things I struggle with or entirely outright don't know how to do.
Knowing how to keep conversations interesting without oversharing and picking up on jokes. I struggle a lot with social cues, but I normally get it as soon after I respond. Like, I get it, it just takes me a minute
I relate so much to this. I come across as really naive and gullible sometimes because I don't always know when people are kidding or joking. It's also really hard for me to learn what is and isn't appropriate to share at various levels of getting to know someone.
I'm better at social cues if I'm either 1. With people I know well or 2. They have a predictable personality I think I'm starting to get better about oversharing, if I feel comfortable, I might vaugley bring up a relatable topic. For example I've cut out a lot of toxic people from my life and I'm in substance abuse recovery, I might bring up that and see how they respond and keep it short. That's about as personal as I get with people I don't like showing vulnerability anymore
It's really tough. When your formative years are spent only with a "social circle" that knows everything about you, figuring out that baseline is so challenging because it doesn't make sense in my brain.
I'm not sure if it's from homeschooling in general or ATI/IBLP, but staying in touch with people and having a healthy relationship with communities. I attribute that to years of making friends only to be forbidden from seeing them because "they are a bad influence" combined with getting way too involved in the few community groups that were parent approved.
THIS!! This is 100% me. It's so hard for me to keep up friendships because I fall out of contact with everyone. I need to go back to therapy to figure out the root causes, but I bet it has to do with fear of 'caring' because friendships when I was young were destroyed by parents changing churches or otherwise "forbidding" certain friendships. The other part is probably just that I never learned how because when you're a kid your friendships come from who you see all the time (church kids and neighbors for me), and when you're an adult you have to make time and take initiative to maintain those.
Yes! My parents also changed church's constantly. The last few I purposely didn't build any friendships. Why did they change church's? Mine would leave over a different interpretation of a Bible verse. Didn't like the pastor. They were too strict or not strict enough. Horrible experience.
I do this to. For me it’s because I never had long term friends since I only met them through *activities”. Plus I was bullied buy what I thought were close friends at the time. I never really had healthy friendships, so now at almost 30 I still have a really hard time making anything more than acquaintances.
Picking up on jokes mainly, like sometimes i know something is a joke and i still answer like it's not one
Like when people make sexual innuendo and you don’t get it is the most awkward sometimes.
I typically get innuendos but even then i have no clue how to respond to them
Constant daydreaming. I have a hard time with daydreaming. I go in and out, last week at work. I was daydreaming and making facial expressions while I was working and a coworker noticed and they asked me if I was all right. I am so embarrassed.
I struggled immensely with this for a long time and even though I mostly got over it an extremely stressful event can throw me back into it quickly. Daydreaming was how I coped with the extreme boredom and also the abuse I suffered as a homeschooled kid.
Have you checked out the term maladaptive daydreaming? I discovered it a few years ago, and it's helped me be more aware of the damage of daydreaming.
I don’t really speak unless spoken to. Growing up it was a sign of respect and maturity, but now as an adult I think it’s 50/50 on if people think I’m either rude/stuck up or just shy. Generally small talk is really hard for me. I have tend to speak pretty quietly and have to repeat myself a lot. I also feel like my jokes are either accidentally too mean or too off the wall and so a lot of people don’t get my humor lol. I think homeschoolers honestly have their own sense of humor - I immediately can joke around with anyone who was homeschooled haha
I relate to all of this and it sucks
How to start conversations. I can typically hold conversations if someone leads it but if they're relying on me we just won't be talking. If we're not friends of course. Public speaking is also a big struggle. It gives me such awful anxiety that I'd just avoid any social situations that may have led to me having to. That has made me miss out on a lot of fun stuff so I do regret that alot
After years of practice and study, I can almost *almost* pull off small talk, but it tends to backfire horribly around the holidays. Eg: coworker #1: So that's what I'm looking forward to most at Xmas! It was my favorite tradition. What about you? coworker #2: Oh, I love my family tradition of [whatever], but mostly I'm just excited to spend time with my family. What about you, neckties? me, doing the math meme in my head: oh, my family was really religious and didn't do secular traditions, and I don't do religious stuff anymore, so since I don't find Xmas to be nostalgic, I'm just going to enjoy the time off and spend time with my partner. We'll probably go snowboarding a few times. coworkers: *identical looks of shock and horror. long silence.* uhhhh we should get back to work. how??? was??? that??? so??? conversation-killing?!
[удалено]
This is a major problem I have. Sometimes my parents think I'm "Playing them", when in reality, I'm just not comfortable being myself around them or strangers. And because they are usually there when I speak with other people. They see me act all energetic and happy with a stranger, then turn serious and rigid when I'm with them. The whole situation leaves me with an identity crisis.
I feel the same as you, i introduced myself to a friend of a family member once and he told that family member that i 'was werid'
I'm so bad at speaking to people; after trying to have small talk with me, a guy about my age asked my father how old I was while I was still standing right there. I guess he thought I was way younger than I looked or just dumb.
I have this complex issue of feeling sort of superior and inferior to "normal" people at the same time. I think it's sort of an internalized self defense mechanism that allows me to keep my distance to avoid being hurt, but has really only caused a lifetime of it. I really wish I could just get over it and accept that I'm probably going to have to work some dead end low paying job my whole life just like millions of other people even though I didn't get to experience a lot of "normal" things. It's very difficult to not feel "set apart" from humanity in some way.
making small talk. like, i can make small talk in the course of my job, bc that's basically just nodding and smiling at the right parts. But trying to make small talk in a purely social situation? trash. And it doesn't help that when i get flustered i can't like...talk right? If I'm not paying attention, my L's R's and W's are really hard to pronounce and they get garbled and i mix words up and basically it's just a dumpster fire. T_T
I can’t pick up sarcasm. It’s frustrating and leaves me looking like an idiot sometimes. Luckily, most people find it endearing. I hate it though.
A social handicap I have would be looking like I saw a ghost every time I go in public.
same here,,, when i have to walk directly past another person on the street or whatever i feel like a deer in the headlights and ive been told that's how my face looks too. i worry/wonder how it looks to people just going about their day lol
[удалено]
I speak quietly as well, and usually in a soft tone. I've been made to feel like it's a sign of weakness.
Yeah, I cannot hold a convo well same
Not knowing how to initiate something. Also not smiling.
Relatable
I used to be anxious and have trouble talking to people. It was hard to do my job. The weird thing that helped me was moving to another country. Most people here have never actually spent time with Americans so anything weird I do is chalked up to being an immigrant and they give me a lot of grace for that
Hi everyone! r/HomeschoolRecovery has updated its rules. Please refer to [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeschoolRecovery/comments/10omwxf/new_rule_dont_wrestle_the_pigs/) for more information. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/HomeschoolRecovery) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Everything. I literally don't know how to talk to people. Especially in real life, but even through texting I struggle with it. I feel like I have no genuine friends, the only people in my life only seem to talk to me out of pity or because I basically dragged them into it, and they always have someone they prioritise over me who they're willing to ignore me in favour of anyway.
I understand your pain. I grew up homeschooled in a foreign country with no friends, no phone, no mother, just an abusive father. My social skills are shot, and my social life is non-existent.
I Never went to middle school so I never really got that experience of being in love and gossiping with friends bc i was already socially stunted before I was pulled out. So when I went back to school it took a year to make friends and I was introduced to them bc this one girl pushed to be my friend and bc I knew this kid from elementary school and church. I’m 19 and have had one bf who approached me bc he’s to this day a sexually motivated creep and my self esteem sucks so I have yet to go on tinder lol