Originally Posted by
Madbird 
I've found it's dangerous for me to try and guess other people's motives or what they're thinking. I used to and occasionally still do have a lot of anxiety over interactions with people, but it is getting much better.
It's a bad habit of mine. I don't know how to let go out of it.
What helped you improve your anxiety over interactions with people?
It helps me to step back and quit trying to explain myself to other people too; either they get me or they don't. You therapist gave you some good advice. If you really like your group, go there for what you do like and find helpful about it and never mind the rest and get the compassion and understanding elsewhere. You can have a sponsor from anywhere you want, but it has to be someone you're comfortable with and can communicate with.
I have trouble letting that go. I get full of self-loathing when people don't get me. My therapist even offered to talk to talk to her on the phone for a few minutes so she'd get me and it'd make our work easier, but she refused. He said it's something about my OCD tendencies that makes people misperceive me or get frustrated with me. :-(
I was also considering continuing to go to this meeting for the interesting stuff I hear, but getting a sponsor elsewhere, and not really converse with these people anymore.
Most of my pain and anxiety has been caused by my own distorted thinking and one of the biggest things I've learned in AA is to stop trying to "force" things. People, situations, events, whatever. Trying to "make" something be the way I think it should be instead of accepting it as it is causes me the most grief in life and when I can let go and allow what is, life is more peaceful. It took me such a long time to grasp that.
That is very helpful and I think part of the problem. I was trying to "force" her to see what she was seeing as grossly wrong. And it frustrated me the more things went on, which then she misperceived as anger. I don't care anymore what people think of me, but I guess it was different when it came to my own sponsor. It was hard for me to accept things as they were with us. I should've moved on a while ago, I think, when the miscommunciations and misunderstandings increased.
Did you have a similar experience with your sponsor, if ok to ask?