Trip Down Memory Lane: Coming to Terms With The Socially Inept Me

I’ll be making some Joker references in this post. If you haven’t watched the movie, maybe you won’t want to read this first. Right from the start, I saw a part of myself in Arthur Fleck in his depression. I’m a little socially inept too. But it was his laughing fits that really got me.

In case you aren’t familiar with Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker and don’t intend to watch it, all you need to know for this post is that Arthur Fleck (Joker, Joaquin Phoenix) is a mentally ill person with a neurological condition that sent him into random laughing fits.

Every time Arthur went into a laughing fit, it sent a pang to my heart because I understood how that felt. For several years, I struggled with an uncontrollable urge to giggle when I’m nervous.

Memory Lane: A Manifestation of My Social Anxiety

As a child, I was very shy. This shyness evolved into social anxiety when I approached puberty, and the social anxiety caused giggling fits that made my life difficult for several years.

Whenever the teacher picked me to recite a passage or answer a question, I’d get so anxious this crazy urge to giggle bubbled up. That’s one of the worse feelings ever. It’s one thing to stumble and shake over words, it’s another to giggle for no reason.

Sometimes, I won’t be able to contain it. It’ll spill out of my mouth – indescribable and joyless. It was absolutely humiliating for an adolescent.

I don’t know if my classmates even remember this, or if they reacted. Everything else became blurry as I withdrew into my embarrassed self, my face burning. Afterward, my mind would replay the moment over and over. I don’t get to forget the humiliation.

This symptom haunted me in public spaces like crowded lifts and quiet offices too. Places where giggles would sound the most out of place and obvious – the brain is such a jerk. I’d be in a crowded lift and the anxiety would rise. So I’d squeeze my eyes shut, bite my lips or pinch my arms.

You’d be surprised how long a lift ride can feel when you’re trying not to embarrass yourself. I should have hidden behind a book.

The constant worry of going into a giggling fit at inappropriate times only fueled the fits.

Eventually, I graduated and left that threatening classroom setting. We had tutorials in my new school, but the classes were smaller. I learned to divert attention away from triggers and comforted myself each time it happened. It helped.

Even though my symptom wasn’t as bad as Arthur Fleck’s, it was real. It was equally uncontrollable and weird. My giggling, like his laugh, was a source of unhappiness.

Does it sound stupid? Me getting all messed up by giggling fits? It seemed to be a small symptom. I can tell you though, it was terrible for someone who’s insecure to begin with.

Present Day

It hardly happens these days, but it still does, usually when I see someone in an embarrassing situation. The horror! I’m absolutely not laughing at them. On the contrary, I feel the urge to giggle because I placed myself in their shoes and felt their embarrassment.

It triggers the same anxiety that triggers the giggling.

That’s why I empathized a lot with Arthur Fleck. The director picked a condition that struck too close to home.

To be clear, I don’t identify with the violent aspects of that character and I think murder is always wrong unless it’s in self-defense.

Murders aside, empathizing with Arthur Fleck’s mental issues helped me to empathize with myself. Some of us just can’t cope with society as well as others. Maybe it’s time I stop blaming myself.

My Insufficiency

I have a perfectly safe and loving family growing up. Despite that, I’ve always felt exposed and vulnerable in society. That led to social anxiety, depression and an impaired ability to navigate society – I still can’t find my place in it.

Social injustice bugs me, and there are way too many hoops that I’d rather avoid entirely than jump through. Even though I know people are good for the most part, the system unsettles me. There’s nothing logical about how I feel.

I don’t see my problems as the fault of society. My circumstances have always been calm and kind. It’s entirely my disposition that made it difficult for me to fit in. I can’t even make a simple decision to get out of the house without experiencing internal struggles.

Being out in the society is like being in the eye of a storm where everything is spinning around me. I feel helpless and confused. Every social interaction requires me to process through a dozen thoughts and perspectives.

People my age are complaining about taxes and insurance, but I haven’t been able to hold a job. When I learn about friends taking overseas work trip, all I can think about is how I’d have quitted before I have to do that.

I’m still uncomfortable handling phone calls.

I know that my anxieties and fears are irrational, but the knowledge doesn’t translate into assurance. We’re expected to change. But if I could change, I would’ve changed already. It isn’t enjoyable to stay in this half-assed state in which each human interaction takes too much mental effort.

Also, there’s nothing self-pitying about it. I don’t feel bad for myself, I feel blame. There’s a lot of confusion, self-criticism and self-loathing.

Moving Forward

For years, I’ve harbored hopes for myself that one day I can break through the walls of my personality and be truly socially-adept. I’m slowly coming to accept that it may not happen. That maybe I’m just socially inept.

It’s funny how there’s often a distance between how we envision ourselves and who we truly are. I feel like if I don’t bridge the distance, I’ll always be upset with the way I am.

After all, it’s not our flaws that cause our downfalls, but how we see and react to it. If we can’t be a certain way, obsessing over it would only make it worse.

We shouldn’t expect anyone to react the way we would react – the discomfort we experience is different. The amount of discomfort we can tolerate differs too.

I have to see my flaws as inevitable parts of me and be gentle with it. Some of us can soldier through it and transform their flaws, some of us can’t. None of us should feel bad about it.

I don’t know if I’ll ever morph into a more confident version of me, but I know I should accept and love every version of me. I hope I can.