I suspect that lines like this are giving people the impression that you [Nate] don’t think there are (realistic) things that you can improve, or that you’ve “given up”.
I do have some general sense here that those aren’t emotionally realistic options for people with my emotional makeup.
I have a sense that there’s some sort of trap for people with my emotional makeup here. If you stay and try to express yourself despite experiencing strong feelings of frustration, you’re “almost yelling”. If you leave because you’re feeling a bunch of frustration and people say they don’t like talking to you while you’re feeling a bunch of frustration, you’re “storming out”.
My understanding is that your perspective is something like “I feel like I recognize that there’s stuff I can do to improve, and I’ve tried to put a lot of energy into finding those improvements, and I’m pretty open to others suggesting specific things I could do. But a lot of things that other people think would be easy fixes actually don’t work or don’t work for someone with my emotional makeup (e.g., because they’re super costly or because I don’t end up being able to implement them well.)
Like, my guess is that some people are like “wait what, why is it costly or infeasible for you to just gently tell someone that you don’t have time/energy for a conversation and politely tell them to talk to their manager?”
And then their reaction is “oh, Nate must not care or must not be trying.” (Which, to be clear, I find to be a reasonable hypothesis. Or at least the continuous version, which is something like “hm, maybe Nate doesn’t care enough or isn’t trying as much as I think the community should expect people in his position to try” or something.)
And then your reaction is “gosh, I am trying, but people seem to systematically underestimate how costly/infeasible a lot of their suggestions are.”
I’m not really sure what to do about this, other than “maybe if this is acknowledged, it’ll lead to more a more constructive dialogue between you and those who want you or expect you to change.”
I suspect that lines like this are giving people the impression that you [Nate] don’t think there are (realistic) things that you can improve, or that you’ve “given up”.
My understanding is that your perspective is something like “I feel like I recognize that there’s stuff I can do to improve, and I’ve tried to put a lot of energy into finding those improvements, and I’m pretty open to others suggesting specific things I could do. But a lot of things that other people think would be easy fixes actually don’t work or don’t work for someone with my emotional makeup (e.g., because they’re super costly or because I don’t end up being able to implement them well.)
Like, my guess is that some people are like “wait what, why is it costly or infeasible for you to just gently tell someone that you don’t have time/energy for a conversation and politely tell them to talk to their manager?”
And then their reaction is “oh, Nate must not care or must not be trying.” (Which, to be clear, I find to be a reasonable hypothesis. Or at least the continuous version, which is something like “hm, maybe Nate doesn’t care enough or isn’t trying as much as I think the community should expect people in his position to try” or something.)
And then your reaction is “gosh, I am trying, but people seem to systematically underestimate how costly/infeasible a lot of their suggestions are.”
I’m not really sure what to do about this, other than “maybe if this is acknowledged, it’ll lead to more a more constructive dialogue between you and those who want you or expect you to change.”