Happy Fun Cog

In the IT department of where I work, someone will occasionally have the right idea of having a 'lessons learned' session after each major project. This involves a meeting or even just a teleconference where people have a (theoretically) neutral meeting to discuss what was done correctly, what was done incorrectly, and what lessons can be learned for future endeavors. Even though this method seems to have unfortunately fallen by the wayside in recent years, I've gradually incorporated it into my personal life. Though I drift into pointless and ruthless self-criticism far too often, I do like to think that I can recognize my mistakes and learn from them without somebody beating me over the head with them.

I was just watching a movie that I've wanted to see for a while, but I ended up stopping the movie about halfway through because I could feel some sort of emotional issue trying to break through; it's a strange feeling, but I'm happy to be at the point where I can recognize if something's bothering me (as opposed to just feeling unsettled and trying to deal with the undefined negativity by getting drunk or stoned).

At the moment, I'm struggling to wrap my head around something that I've been learning over the past few weeks at work. I don't want to go into trying to describe the whole situation because that could go on for paragraphs and paragraphs.

I think I have a problem with being aloof. Or, not being aloof but acting aloof. I've been dealing with a situation where I'm definitely out of my league in terms of technical knowledge. In fact, over the past few weeks when I've been struggling with it, people I trust have pulled me aside and told me, in short, "Don't try to solve this by yourself. It's way too complicated." I understood this when when I heard it, but promptly hit a wall: I'm very confused about how to do things in some other way other than by myself. I'm not good at coordinating efforts because I always feel like I'm imposing on people when I ask them to do something.

I just... I close myself off. I can't explain it beyond that because I don't understand it beyond that. I just get stressed out about dealing with people and the top priority I have when I'm dealing with people is to stop dealing with them one way or the other. I don't ask questions I should ask or don't push issues I should push because the only thing I want to do is stop talking with them, hang up the phone or walk back to my cube, put on my headphones, and relax in my solitude.

The problem is that my job is now at a point where things are too complicated just to rely on my brains and the few people I can trust/talk to as a way of getting by; I HAVE to start working with people and communicating with them better. But the ability to think this through and have these thoughts seem to be limited to when I'm at home. When I'm at work, I just slip into defensive mode and I have a hard time getting myself out of it.