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Embarrasing Thoughts Make Me Blurt Out Things
When I think of an embarrassing moment (whether it be real or imaginary) I will blurt out a swear, or perhaps a sentence like, "I love you (insert name)". I believe I do that as a means to "snap me out of" the moment so as not to re-experience the feelings the embarrassment caused, or causes, or to just end the momentary thought before it completes.
I would say that 50% of the time I blurt out some kind of swears or a sentence with a swear in it. The other 50% I have this habit of saying "I love you (insert ex gf's name)" or some other name. I must interject at this point that I am happily married and have no interest in any past gf's. But for some reason, the one name I usually insert is an ex-gf who I was overly in love with and who did end up dumping me. Which is fine by me now because I have an awesome wife and a wonderful family. And I am not supressing any deep down desires for my ex....believe me on that. When I do this most is when I am by myself and therefore, dealing with the gazillion thoughts that race thru my mind every minute. Sometimes my mind is like a runaway train. And eventually, the thoughts come back to an embarrassing moment, or a situation I make up in my mind that would embarass me, and I blurt something out, I thought out of habit to snap me out of the moment. Sometimes I blurt something out and one of my kids or my wifes hears me and will ask me what I was saying. Most times I can cover up what I said with some kind of excuse about what I was talking about. One time I was in the bathroom and, in the middle of an embarrasing thought, I blurted out, "I hate you!". My wife happened to be walking by the bathroom at that second and heard me and she thought I was referring to her which I wasn't. So we had a big to-do about that. Of course I"m scared to death that I will blurt out my ex-gf's name and she will hear me and she'll freak. It does seem to be worse when I am really stressed. I am not nearly as stressed as I used to be probably because I have learned how to deal with it in many ways including meditation. Thank God for meditation. Best part of my day.
Anyways I'd like to know if this happens to you and if you have any techniques to control these outbursts? Thank you.
I would say that 50% of the time I blurt out some kind of swears or a sentence with a swear in it. The other 50% I have this habit of saying "I love you (insert ex gf's name)" or some other name. I must interject at this point that I am happily married and have no interest in any past gf's. But for some reason, the one name I usually insert is an ex-gf who I was overly in love with and who did end up dumping me. Which is fine by me now because I have an awesome wife and a wonderful family. And I am not supressing any deep down desires for my ex....believe me on that. When I do this most is when I am by myself and therefore, dealing with the gazillion thoughts that race thru my mind every minute. Sometimes my mind is like a runaway train. And eventually, the thoughts come back to an embarrassing moment, or a situation I make up in my mind that would embarass me, and I blurt something out, I thought out of habit to snap me out of the moment. Sometimes I blurt something out and one of my kids or my wifes hears me and will ask me what I was saying. Most times I can cover up what I said with some kind of excuse about what I was talking about. One time I was in the bathroom and, in the middle of an embarrasing thought, I blurted out, "I hate you!". My wife happened to be walking by the bathroom at that second and heard me and she thought I was referring to her which I wasn't. So we had a big to-do about that. Of course I"m scared to death that I will blurt out my ex-gf's name and she will hear me and she'll freak. It does seem to be worse when I am really stressed. I am not nearly as stressed as I used to be probably because I have learned how to deal with it in many ways including meditation. Thank God for meditation. Best part of my day.
Anyways I'd like to know if this happens to you and if you have any techniques to control these outbursts? Thank you.
I'm so thankful I'm not alone in this. I thought I was crazy. Thank you to everyone for sharing. I really needed to hear this.
I too am grateful for this thread. It seems to have been going for 6 years now, but is still alive so I'm glad we all found this place to reassure us we are not crazy!
My random blurts started out as a mixture of 'F$&% you a$$hole, I hate you' and 'I love you, sweetie pie!'. I know that the 'sweetie pie' refers to my ex-boyfriend as this is what we called each other, so I do share that trend of it being about my ex which is commonly mentioned in this thread. Thankfully, I have never yelled out his actual name, as I'm currently happily married like many of you. Over the past three years, my blurts have expanded to include variations such as 'F you a$$hole', 'Sh*t, F$&%, I love you', 'F$&% you a-hole', 'F you sweetie pie, I love you' etc.
Like many of you who have commented already, I am also not one to swear in this way in day to day conversation, so these angry outbursts are very unlike me, or the 'conscious me' anyway! My loud outbursts usually happen when I'm home alone, or at home around my husband, but no-one else. When I'm with other people, such as at a meeting at a client's office, if I feel any sort of anxiety creeping up, my mind somehow knows that I shouldn't shout out the outbursts, so I end up mouthing them silently instead. This is entirely subconscious. I don't feel like I am controlling it consciously at all. It's just that maybe my mind is being kind to me and preventing me from having a very embarrassing situation. Nonetheless, I do worry that my clients may begin to think I'm a weirdo when they see my mouth moving involuntarily in meetings with no words coming out – and god help me if anyone can lip read!!
I am a very critical person. I need to be for my job. I conduct quality assurance reviews including proofreading and software testing. I am a grammar and punctuation freak and I often spot errors in menus and advertisements, and occasionally in published books. I notice that a few others have said they are artists or designers, so this may involve quality assurance and fine attention to detail also… Does anyone else with this condition share any of these traits?
My theory on the cause of it for me is that I am a perfectionist who is intolerant of errors. I expect perfection from everyone around me and most importantly from myself. I place a large amount of pressure on myself to deliver perfect work and behave appropriately at all times. In terms of the root cause of why this is the way I am, I think I have worked out from therapy that it's because as a child I felt that my parents didn't praise me or tell me they loved me, so I was always striving to be perfect so that I could become 'lovable'. My mum was a very critical person. For example, if I washed the dishes, she would notice that there were still a few soap suds remaining in the sink when I was done, rather than say, 'Thank you, what a great helper you are'. This has made me really good at my job today, so I thank her for that! But it also may have contributed to this unhelpful habit I have. That is, where my brain has some quiet time and ventures into 'subconscious land', it replays an event from my past where I did something embarrassing or shameful to remind me that I'm not perfect.
Then comes the vocal outburst… In relation to the specific words that come out at these times, well, my 'sweetie pie' ex-boyfriend was a man I adored and was deeply in love with, but he broke up with me 3 times over the course of our 3 year relationship. Each time it was over something I'd done that he didn't like, such as getting moody (you know, things that are unpleasant but you can usually apologise and move on). Anyway, the first two times we got back together and I felt more and more vulnerable each time as I was trying harder and harder to be perfect for him to try to avoid him breaking up with me again. In my subconscious, I think the break-ups made me feel like I was not worthy of love because I was not perfect. The third time he broke up with me, I didn't take him back because I realised I did not want to live like that: never living up to his expectations. I've since moved on and am now very happily married (and have no contact with my ex). My husband accepts me exactly as I am – imperfections and all – but the blurting still continues! Many of you have commented that you blurt about your ex-partners, even though they mean nothing to you now (consciously), so I wonder if you might agree with my theory which is: I think the words we choose in our 'blurt' might be representative of a point in our lives when we might have been trying so hard to be perfect that we were very vulnerable and someone else pointed out to us that we are less than perfect. I'm pretty sure that this is the cause in my case.
Another thing is I work from home full time and have done so for the past 3 years. Do you think a common theme could be that we all seem to spend a lot of time alone, and therefore our brains have no-one else to criticise for imperfections, but ourselves?
Also, I have a constant ringing in my ears (only very quiet). At first I thought it was some equipment in my office, but it isn't. I put it down to hearing damage, but it did seem to start around the same time that the outbursts started, so I wonder whether it might be connected at all, if anyone else has the same thing?
In terms of treatment, I can say that my condition has improved quite a bit over the past year as I've been keeping a list of the embarassing moments on my phone. Every time I do a blurt, I write down the embarassing moment that popped into my mind to trigger it. Most of the time it's something so trivial that most people would just laugh it off, so when I look at it in writing, it makes me think, "Oh, THAT'S what I'm berating myself about now?!' And it's strange but that seems to serve the purpose of dismissing that event and putting it in the trash (in my mind), as the same trivial thoughts don't seem to pop up again after that...
And with the big ones that are not trivial – the genuinely shameful things I've done that I feel guilty about – well, when I write those I say to myself, "I'm not perfect. Nobody is. I do the best I can and I forgive myself for that error in judgment." These ones usually need more than one time round before I seem to be able to put them in the 'trash'. Nowadays, the embarassing moments that pop up with my blurts are usually ones that have occurred recently (like in the last 24 hours) but old ones can pop back up again when I'm going through a particularly stressful time. Also, exercising daily in the morning and trying to meditate does help me too.
I'm looking forward to following this thread to see if anyone else has some commonalities to share…
My random blurts started out as a mixture of 'F$&% you a$$hole, I hate you' and 'I love you, sweetie pie!'. I know that the 'sweetie pie' refers to my ex-boyfriend as this is what we called each other, so I do share that trend of it being about my ex which is commonly mentioned in this thread. Thankfully, I have never yelled out his actual name, as I'm currently happily married like many of you. Over the past three years, my blurts have expanded to include variations such as 'F you a$$hole', 'Sh*t, F$&%, I love you', 'F$&% you a-hole', 'F you sweetie pie, I love you' etc.
Like many of you who have commented already, I am also not one to swear in this way in day to day conversation, so these angry outbursts are very unlike me, or the 'conscious me' anyway! My loud outbursts usually happen when I'm home alone, or at home around my husband, but no-one else. When I'm with other people, such as at a meeting at a client's office, if I feel any sort of anxiety creeping up, my mind somehow knows that I shouldn't shout out the outbursts, so I end up mouthing them silently instead. This is entirely subconscious. I don't feel like I am controlling it consciously at all. It's just that maybe my mind is being kind to me and preventing me from having a very embarrassing situation. Nonetheless, I do worry that my clients may begin to think I'm a weirdo when they see my mouth moving involuntarily in meetings with no words coming out – and god help me if anyone can lip read!!
I am a very critical person. I need to be for my job. I conduct quality assurance reviews including proofreading and software testing. I am a grammar and punctuation freak and I often spot errors in menus and advertisements, and occasionally in published books. I notice that a few others have said they are artists or designers, so this may involve quality assurance and fine attention to detail also… Does anyone else with this condition share any of these traits?
My theory on the cause of it for me is that I am a perfectionist who is intolerant of errors. I expect perfection from everyone around me and most importantly from myself. I place a large amount of pressure on myself to deliver perfect work and behave appropriately at all times. In terms of the root cause of why this is the way I am, I think I have worked out from therapy that it's because as a child I felt that my parents didn't praise me or tell me they loved me, so I was always striving to be perfect so that I could become 'lovable'. My mum was a very critical person. For example, if I washed the dishes, she would notice that there were still a few soap suds remaining in the sink when I was done, rather than say, 'Thank you, what a great helper you are'. This has made me really good at my job today, so I thank her for that! But it also may have contributed to this unhelpful habit I have. That is, where my brain has some quiet time and ventures into 'subconscious land', it replays an event from my past where I did something embarrassing or shameful to remind me that I'm not perfect.
Then comes the vocal outburst… In relation to the specific words that come out at these times, well, my 'sweetie pie' ex-boyfriend was a man I adored and was deeply in love with, but he broke up with me 3 times over the course of our 3 year relationship. Each time it was over something I'd done that he didn't like, such as getting moody (you know, things that are unpleasant but you can usually apologise and move on). Anyway, the first two times we got back together and I felt more and more vulnerable each time as I was trying harder and harder to be perfect for him to try to avoid him breaking up with me again. In my subconscious, I think the break-ups made me feel like I was not worthy of love because I was not perfect. The third time he broke up with me, I didn't take him back because I realised I did not want to live like that: never living up to his expectations. I've since moved on and am now very happily married (and have no contact with my ex). My husband accepts me exactly as I am – imperfections and all – but the blurting still continues! Many of you have commented that you blurt about your ex-partners, even though they mean nothing to you now (consciously), so I wonder if you might agree with my theory which is: I think the words we choose in our 'blurt' might be representative of a point in our lives when we might have been trying so hard to be perfect that we were very vulnerable and someone else pointed out to us that we are less than perfect. I'm pretty sure that this is the cause in my case.
Another thing is I work from home full time and have done so for the past 3 years. Do you think a common theme could be that we all seem to spend a lot of time alone, and therefore our brains have no-one else to criticise for imperfections, but ourselves?
Also, I have a constant ringing in my ears (only very quiet). At first I thought it was some equipment in my office, but it isn't. I put it down to hearing damage, but it did seem to start around the same time that the outbursts started, so I wonder whether it might be connected at all, if anyone else has the same thing?
In terms of treatment, I can say that my condition has improved quite a bit over the past year as I've been keeping a list of the embarassing moments on my phone. Every time I do a blurt, I write down the embarassing moment that popped into my mind to trigger it. Most of the time it's something so trivial that most people would just laugh it off, so when I look at it in writing, it makes me think, "Oh, THAT'S what I'm berating myself about now?!' And it's strange but that seems to serve the purpose of dismissing that event and putting it in the trash (in my mind), as the same trivial thoughts don't seem to pop up again after that...
And with the big ones that are not trivial – the genuinely shameful things I've done that I feel guilty about – well, when I write those I say to myself, "I'm not perfect. Nobody is. I do the best I can and I forgive myself for that error in judgment." These ones usually need more than one time round before I seem to be able to put them in the 'trash'. Nowadays, the embarassing moments that pop up with my blurts are usually ones that have occurred recently (like in the last 24 hours) but old ones can pop back up again when I'm going through a particularly stressful time. Also, exercising daily in the morning and trying to meditate does help me too.
I'm looking forward to following this thread to see if anyone else has some commonalities to share…
Hello, I'm new here, an empty nester and old enough to know the blurtng is here to stay. Lexapro does nothing. I'm less embarrassed now that I'm older and I talk about it with my sons and husband who take it as just another harmless quirk I have. Glad to see the board liven up. My doc does not label the blurting as Tourettes, rather a way to quell anxiety. I think our inner critic is taking part in the act too, nasty b-$%^rd! Thanks to everyone for sharing. We are not so alone ... or unique. Sometimes I wonder how all these mental illnesses survived ... that nature would have weeded them out in our evolutionary process. Onward.
Hello, I'm new here, an empty nester and old enough to know the blurtng is here to stay. Lexapro does nothing. I'm less embarrassed now that I'm older and I talk about it with my sons and husband who take it as just another harmless quirk I have. Glad to see the board liven up. My doc does not label the blurting as Tourettes, rather a way to quell anxiety. I think our inner critic is taking part in the act too, nasty b-$%^rd! Thanks to everyone for sharing. We are not so alone ... or unique. Sometimes I wonder how all these mental illnesses survived ... that nature would have weeded them out in our evolutionary process. Onward.
This is so me and I'm 60 years old. I have had this issue for many years, I just blurt out random things when I'm reliving a moment of embarrassment Usually say things like I love you and add a name of my current partner of an ex from many years ago, the other thing I say is my adults daughters name calling her a ***** or I say saysomeones name and then say I'm pregnant. Stupid things that have no meaning and are totally out of context. It seems to be getting worse as I get older and for many years I've covered it up but now i'm at home more often with my husband with more idle time as we are empty nesters he seems to be more aware of the issue and I'm getting caught out more and more. I don't know what to do or who to talk and would love for it to stop.
I have the same exact issue. I do not know if I have ADHD or Tourette's. (Although I do tend to be a little bit hyperactive and have trouble focusing sometimes). When I am thinking to myself of a situation I have encountered that is embarrassing, or even my behavior in certain instances (even if not overtly embarrassing), I say the phrase "I'm in love with you sweetie!" involuntarily aloud. I think it is my mind trying to snap out of it. Sometimes my wife asks what I said, and I have to say 'nothing", and that in itself is embarrassing or hard to explain. Occasionally, when alone, in my vehicle, I will also swear aloud in that phrase forcefully. It's weird not being able to control these outbursts. I have a young child, so I do not want this to happen around him especially. I do think the incidence of occurrence increases with stresses in my life.
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