TLDR: I have a long history of being unexpressive, uninterested, blunt, etc, and it all has seemingly conditioned me into being a mean person, even when I’m not trying to be (which is most times).
Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve almost always found myself saying whatever I wanted without much of a filter. Everyone in my house was like this (my sister, my mother, my father, everyone), so I do have it honest. We’re all very straight to the point and we’re not particularly for sugarcoating, we also all have a history of being considered mean/rude, but I feel like I got it the worst and I’m not sure what to do.
For example, I’ve often found myself in situations where I’m giving prompted (or unprompted) advice, only for me to end up having to apologize to the other person due to me saying the wrong thing, which always leads to a bunch of other misinterpretations and misunderstandings. I’m also not that great at apologizing and reiterating whatever point I was trying to make that came out wrong before. It all sometimes still ends up being wrong.
All of this has resulted in me becoming a very quiet person. Not because I’m shy, but because I’ve just proven to be a very destructive person. Just a couple weeks ago, I practically wrecked my relationship with a long time acquaintance of mine because of this problem.
Despite the odds, I do fully believe I am a good person. I never (at least not anymore) say anything directly to someone with negative intent, it just comes out that way sometimes and I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to be one of those people that’s always saying “I’m not mean, I’m just very blunt”, when they’re in fact mean, but it’s seeming like that’s the case.
I’ve been in therapy for problems that I feel are related to this. I would’ve brought this up then, but I didn’t quite have the grasp on it that I have now. I was previously in therapy so that I could improve my conversational skills. My tone of voice, body language, and even the actual language that I’m saying does not always match how I actually feel, but sometimes it matches exactly what I feel (bored, uninterested, etc), and I cannot hide it. I was told I’m quite unenthusiastic and just generally not a very expressive person. Even now I feel like I’m not really communicating what my problem is all that well, but I hope that isn’t the case. Please help me if you understand.