My "nickname" growing up was the "tactless wonder". I'm furious looking at the definition and processing this.
When I was growing up my parents made it pretty clear that I embarrassed them, and when I "failed" some sort of social interaction. In retrospect, social situations would usually have some sort of post-mortem, where they would explain in detail whatever faux pas I committed. Family social events were when the most amount of scrutiny would be applied. I became known as the "tactless wonder" which my uBPD mother even affectionately told my husband who was confused and slightly offended by the moniker. It led to me thinking and hearing this word, concept, "tact" that's almost nonexistent in my independent adult life. Like what does that even mean? How often does it even come up? I'm not a Southern belle socialite at the church social.
However, I am now realizing this deeply affected how I interact with the world. I'm someone who is almost compulsively socially anxious. I can't help, but scrutinize just about every previous social interaction and speculate how I may have upset someone. I play embarrassing moments or generally ones where I put my foot in my mouth on loop. It's the background soundtrack of my brain. It also made me inherently distrust my own behavior, and believe that I can be thoughtlessly cruel, selfish, or unkind. Also add on the accusations of manipulation whenever something hurt the feelings of "sensitive" little old me, I learned to never trust my own perception of my behavior. I am now understanding that this is how my uBPD mother (who was quite the Queen when I was growing up) and (possibly also uBPD) father their perceived image around others, but also very directly me. To this day, my mom still treats me at times like an 8 year old that needs to be lectured on how to interact with others.
It all makes me so angry to think about, because my nickname was literally "someone who never cares about upsetting someone" while I have lived in a fawn response for so much of life walking on eggshells, because in addition to the social scrutiny they fucking emphasized I WAS ALSO TRYING TO KEEP MY EMOTIONALLY IMMATURE PARENTS FROM EXPLODING ON ME. I don't know if I want to punch something or cry.
Has anyone else gone through anything like this? I'm sure a lot of people can relate to the painful realization of how thoroughly you have been molded to have such low self esteem that it fractures how you relate to yourself.