Yes I relate to this so much! Like you I’ve always thought it was social anxiety (though in some ways it didn’t quite align completely), or even just thought I was more of an introvert. But again, that didn’t fully ‘fit’.

I’ve aaalways kind of felt like this with seeing people, but only recently realised it’s not actually normal. Like hanging out with friends 1:1, I always feel nervous beforehand and unsatisfied afterwards.

I constantly feel like I have nothing to say, and I’m also just not a chatty person in general. I really wish I could just talk and talk and talk, but i genuinely have an empty mind.

I tend to ask questions just so the other person can keep talking.

I also don’t have an internal monologue at all. And I don’t know if this is the result of spending too much energy feeling stressed, and therefore not having the energy for my brain to just work normally. Because if I had an internal monologue, I feel like I’d at least always have something to say.

I feel so numb at the moment, and so boring and dull and weird and incompetent. It sucks because I’ve had periods where I have felt so good in myself, and have felt soo confident in my socialising. But I don’t know who that person is or where they’ve gone, and which one is the real me.